Oh, boy!! Two moons to play with...!!

Staggered Start

Our staggered start format intends to get everyone finishing within a four hour window, plus or minus 2 hours on either side of 8AM Sunday. That involves calculating how long it ought to take any one runner to conquer the course within a specified window of time, complicated by a potentially high degree of guesswork (yours included) juxtaposed with periodic (vs fluid) start times. Your entry form information provides the initial reference for starting time, but your actual start time will consider this evolution of “dialogue”: (1) You assess your conditioning regardless of recent history; (2) add in how much night running may slow you down; (3) how might ~27,000+ feet of elevation (~19,000 for 100K’ers) add to your time;
(4) check times of finishers from the last 3 years with whom you’ve run comparable times as they in your qualifying runs;
(5) make your guess of how many hours you’ll need to complete your Two Moon experience (your starting time will be calculated based on your input). 
(6) The dialogue finishes, with maybe one last round of “negotiation” if your times are questionable and/or a couple weeks out from the event you can’t control your anxiety and need to whinge/whine about your suggested start time, by the C2M Clandestine Curmudgeon Calculators’ decision on which Start Group you’ll join.

No moon in sight, but they'll find 'em both before Sunday

Explaining the Staggered Start Logic

There isn’t any? Absent arguable logic, our curmudgeon calculators will find some way to pigeonhole you into a start group that will put you at comparable risk for finding the finish as anyone else out there. C2M ‘11 will continue the Sandbagger Protocol (originating from Round One’s four misfits KumedaGillesOwensQuivey, and enhanced by Kirk “Hubcap Cuz His Wheels Fell Off” Fortini’s ‘09 and Bud “Geezer” Phillips’ booster rocket ‘10 experiences), which likely will only impact the 1st three start groups. If we accidentally assign you to a too-slow start group (based on your bogus predicted time), and you move quickly enough to get ahead of the opening times for the down-course aid stations, you’ll just have to suffer out on the course without our aid, or cool your jets until the aid station staff shows up. Breech the Sandbagger Protocol, and expect your own personalized brunch served up on Sunday morning, a la leftover paté and twice-grubby-hands-mangled aid station fare, and more than likely, enough boner minutes to rocket you to the bottom of the finishers list.

On the other end of the spectrum, too, are the highly testosteroned big dogs who can’t avoid an unusual challenge.  Course record holder, Karlos MeltzermeierO’Schulz, actually started with the 3rd 100K Start Group in ‘10, and HardlyWalk 2010’s winner, MooMan Campbell, started with the 2nd 100K Start Group, taking on the individual challenge of not just enjoying the chase, but putting their pre-10AM Sunday finish at equal risk with others on the course.  What other hot rods might join that distinctly self-flagellating Order of the Powder?

Final Start Group Assignments

The really final assignments, based on a couple final desperate pleas for mercy, are now really final.  And since you’ve either been paying attention or not, then seeing that list again here won’t be much value added for what lies ahead.  Hence, who’s running with whom when now becomes a mystery best left to the moon’s passage across the sky.  Return to the website a few days after the weekend to see who, by nickname, may luckily/grudgingly finished in what purterbated (Bonus/Boner Minute-enhanced) time; visit again a week or so after that to see real names displayed with raw times.  All part of the storyline…

Don was the sole finisher in the Dos Lunas Scrub Run