welcome to the team Chriso!

here is an explaination of how deadlines are set:
http://folding.stanford.edu/faq.html#stats.howdead

you really don't need to worry about them too much as they are more than long enough to allow just about any computer to finish in time, they are just there to make sure everything keeps flowing smoothly

here is the scientific background on folding:
http://folding.stanford.edu/science.html


happy folding