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| 2015 Atlanta Ragnar Trail Relay t-shirt |
Here's just a bit more analysis on the 2015 Atlanta Ragnar Trail Relay race I competed in last week. I took the preliminary race results and sorted all the teams by start time. The first group of teams started at 10:00 a.m. and the last group started at 4:00 p.m. The first group being the lowest and the last group to start being the fastest. As you can see from the chart below, the last runners to start did actually have faster lap times.
I then sorted the results by start time and class (men, mixed, women). As you can see at around the 40 mark on the teams axis there is a defined break. This is where the fastest men gave way to the slowest mixed class of men and women. Then again there is another defined break at around the 200 mark. This is where the fastest mixed class teams gave way to the slowest women teams. Another thing that can be gathered from the chart is that the majority of the teams are mixed (men and women).
The chart above also illustrates why teams are afforded the opportunity to enter a race pace. Imagine being in a fast group having to traverse each course with several hundred slower runners obstructing your forward progress. Of course, that seems like what they have done. All the slower runners are out on the course before the faster runners even start. This begs the question, is it better to estimate a slower pace? During my legs I rarely came upon another runner therefore I doubt it would matter. I was passed only twice and passed about 30 runners in total during my 3 laps.
Groups started at 10:00 a.m., 11 a.m., 12 p.m., 1 p.m., 1:30 p.m., 2 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 3 p.m., 3:30 p.m., and 4 p.m. There were approximately 220 teams of runners, 8 person regular teams and 4 person ultra teams.
Just some interesting things you can do with Excel!
Thanks for reading.
