Training Log Archive: BigWillyStyle

Easy yog around the zoo. While I was yogging I was contemplating the impending occasion of the inaugural Cascade WIOL/Winter Series Relay, slated for Sunday at Woodland Park. Side note - this event was put together at a late stage and somewhat haphazardly, so we have presented it as a exhibition/bonus WIOL event, and will use it to do things like test the ability of our software and organizational wherewithal to stage a three-person relay and gauge whether interest in a relay even exists among WIOL kids, with an eye toward next season.

Anyway, as I was saying before being rudely interrupted by myself, during my yog I was contemplating the competitive prospects of the various relay teams (rosters are found here) and which might win the day. One is confronted with a veritable menagerie of age, gender, experience, speed, nationality, and relationship combinations, from which no team emerges as the obvious favorite. We have all-junior teams, all-female teams, family teams, husband/wife/third-wheel teams, old-guy teams, and everything in between. How to make sense of such entropy? With carefully measured, well-thought-out wildly unfounded speculation, of course.

Some teams which may emerge as contenders:

Three Fast Women (103): One of the most intriguing prospects, this team is all-female, all-junior, and something of a WIOL All-Star team - it includes this season's winner and runner-up from Varsity Girls, and runner-up from JV Girls. Siri's speed should get them off to a strong start, but can Annika and Caroline hang in?

Team Bulgaria Canada Latvia (105): Unless Peteris chokes (don't choke, Peteris) this team should emerge from Leg 1 with a clear lead. However, their Leg 2 and 3 runners are total unknowns. Therefore, I totally do not know whether Team Bulgaria Canada Latvia will finish first or last. Also, "Team Bulgaria Canada Latvia" is the best you can do? Really? At the Relay Champs next month, Eric, Tori, and myself plan to call ourselves Team America America America.

SGLRG Krakens (110): A solid all-around team with no glaring weaknesses - interesting that they've chosen to place their strongest runner in the mass start. Strategery. And lockboxes. This team name sounds like a second-division football club from the Eredivisie owned by an Emirati sheikh who has fallen out of favor with the king and had to auction off his only all-chrome Rolls-Royce :'(

Team NDN (111): Lots to like here - experience, skill, pedigree - but sprinting is the dominant milieu of none of these three, and this venue and format may devalue their strengths. If they come to Leg 3 at or near the lead, however, Nikolay will be tough to beat bringing it home.

Himalayan Blackberries (115): ^...except if this team changes over with him. The Bonesaw will blast onto Leg 3 like a starving wolf after the scent of blood, having already watched X teams start before him - his inner rage and serenity building in perfectly balanced symbiotic duality until they are unleashed upon the silly hapless controls...but will he be too far behind??

Prediction: I expect the winners to come from among these five, but in this post I have endeavored to use as many qualifiers and question marks as possible so as to make myself sound erudite and forethoughtful no matter what happens. Nonetheless, I will say that BulCanLat and Blackberries have top-end vroom but lack the requisite depth, so let's toss them out. We can then break down the other three teams into individual matchups. If we stipulate to the following rough equivalences:

Patrick ~ Siri ~ Nikolay
Gina ~ Caroline ~ Dave

Then we're left with Tim v. Annika v. Nina, from which, based on past results, we must give the nod to Nina. Ergo:

1. Team NDN
2. SGLRG Krakens
3. Three Fast Women

There you have it.

C • Relay 1

Ugh

Meh

Stage 4 - Setup - Elite Male - Splits

Stage 5 - Chase - Elite Male - Splits

Meh

Ugh

Woo!

https://data.whyjustrun.ca/files/5/5/fJxJLSIehUx9C...

YOU LIKE THAT???

Me and my dude DRob slayin

Stage 2 - Elite Male - Splits