diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 23b24d840c661ec6f8c1694629b9024bf9b07caa..399f0daaf0c11acdb1bd1d553a8290d238ac53f1 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -62,7 +62,7 @@ To run a set of replicates from study RID:
 ------------------------------------------
 Run in repo root dir:
 * `sh workflow/scripts/splitStudy.sh [studyRID]`
-It will run in parallel in batches of 5 replicatesRID
+It will run in parallel in batches of 25 replicatesRID with 10 second delays between launches.
 
 
 
diff --git a/workflow/scripts/splitStudy.sh b/workflow/scripts/splitStudy.sh
index a64b6d9e4cde818d1c6f91fd84144b821febc536..6552e7de2cfe3b5dfabf9cfe82b5a44bc48b3431 100644
--- a/workflow/scripts/splitStudy.sh
+++ b/workflow/scripts/splitStudy.sh
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ python3 ./workflow/scripts/splitStudy.py -s $1
 # run pipeline on replicate RIDs in parallel
 module load nextflow/20.01.0
 module load singularity/3.5.3
-while read repRID; do echo ${repRID}; done < "$1_studyRID.csv" | xargs -P 5 -I {} nextflow run workflow/rna-seq.nf --repRID {}
+while read repRID; do echo ${repRID}; sleep 10; done < "$1_studyRID.csv" | xargs -P 25 -I {} nextflow run workflow/rna-seq.nf --repRID {}
 
 # cleanup study RID files
 rm $1_studyRID.json