Beginner Gardening: Selecting strawberry runners, 1 by CCW

CCW wrote:
We have a strawberry patch that we started last year. As instructed, last year we selected runners to replace the mother plants for this year. We selected them as soon as runners started developing. The plants produced what seemed like a million runners throughout the season and in the meantime our patch got pretty overcrowded with the babies and mothers. My question is... Is it okay to select the runners later in the season so that they don't overcrowd the patch? This also makes it easier to see the runners to cut off when there aren't too many plants in the patch. We have gotten lots of strawberries this year and want to have plenty next year but would like to start the replacement plants a little later in the season if possible.