How to assign legs on a relay

Before you pick anyone, look at what each leg asks. The race’s own page lists every leg’s distance and the organizer’s difficulty rating, from easiest to hardest.

1. Distance: legs can run from a mile or two to 8 miles or more.
2. Difficulty: the organizer’s rating is the headline. Where Handoff has measured the course, it also works out a rating from the hills alone, which shows where climbing or descending changes the pace. How the two ratings differ
3. Terrain: on a race with a measured course, the leg table shows each leg’s climb, descent and a small elevation profile, and an opened leg shows the stretches steeper than 6%.
4. Time of day: some legs run in the dark.

Every race page lists its legs. Find your race.

Ask each runner three things: how fast they run, how far they are happy to run in one go, and whether they would be comfortable running a night leg. Injuries and work schedules matter too, since some people cannot run the first or last leg.

A recent 10K time is enough to project a runner’s pace. If someone has raced a different distance, the pace calculator turns it into an estimate you can use.

Three runners can each run 15 miles and have very different days. A few things to balance:

1. Total distance: keep each runner’s three legs in the same range, unless someone has asked for more or less.
2. Hard legs: try not to give one runner several of the hardest legs, and put the long, hilly ones with the people who like them.
3. Rest: a runner needs time to recover between legs, and a leg that starts soon after the last one finishes is a tough turnaround. Handoff labels a leg that a runner runs right after another of theirs as back to back.
4. Short legs: use them for newer runners or anyone coming back from injury.

Handoff’s Legs tab has a Runner load view that shows each runner’s total distance, and on a measured race their total climb and descent, so you can see at a glance who is carrying the most.

On a two-van team, your van follows the legs you run. One van runs its six legs while the other rests, eats and drives ahead, so the legs you give a runner decide which van they ride in and when they rest. Which van is mine?

It helps to put friends and carpoolers in the same van, and to check that each van has someone who is comfortable driving at night.

Handoff projects when each leg starts from every runner’s pace and shows which legs run in the dark. A runner on a night leg usually needs a headlamp and a reflective vest, so tell them early.

Within 10 days of a race, the leg plan also shows the forecast and marks legs that start in warm or hot weather, which is when you might move a strong runner onto the hot afternoon leg. How are times projected?

1. Open your team’s Legs tab.
2. Pick a runner, then tap the legs they run.
3. Check the projected times, the Runner load and any back-to-back legs.
4. Save the plan.

You can also let runners claim open legs themselves, and freeze claims once the plan is settled. How?

Not captaining yet? The captain checklist puts leg planning in order with everything else.