Which Leg?

I’m planning to run in the Hood To Coast Relay this year.    I’ve run it 6 times in last 9 years.   I would like to have run all 9, but various injuries have prevented that.   I’m about 90% sure I’ll be able to run it this summer, although I’m still fighting the injury that kept me out last year.  There are 12 legs in the HTC Relay and I would like to do all of them.

Last night was the first meeting of my team.   The first meeting is always fun.   For our team, I would guess that of the 12 people we currently have, 8 of them will actually run in the race.   Four will drop out for various reasons and be replaced with other runners.   We chose which legs we want to run last night.   I find this to be a humorous exercise.   It’s funny because the legs we end up running will change as the team changes.   It’s also funny because the people who have never run the race before, only 4 in our case, agonize over what they should choose.   There are maps of each leg with distance, elevation profile, and difficulty ranking.   When you choose a particular leg, you are actually choosing 3 different runs.   Aside from a couple of legs that either have very steep hills, or very long distances, they are all about the same.   When the last weekend in August comes, you’re not going to be thinking about whether the run is 4.6 or 5.2 miles.   You’re going to be thinking that you’re sleepy, worn out, and probably in some kind of pain.   The distances, and for the most part the hills, just fade into the background.   In other words, every leg sucks.