Down to the wire
There is something special about the 1,600-meter relay. It’s surprising how often a track meet is decided by this usual closing event. Even if it doesn’t determine the team champion, it often provides drama.
The legend of Becca Noble was cemented at the State 4A track meet two years ago when she got the baton for the anchor leg 30 meters behind the leader and somehow made it to the finish line first. After that, nothing the Rogers standout did was too surprising.
“It’s something about everybody else being done,” Mead coach Dori Robertson said. “It’s (sometimes) under the lights, everybody is running back and forth, your body is dying from 300 meters on. You can do more for the team than you can for yourself.”
The race doesn’t have the heart-stopping, bang-bang feel of a sprint relay. Those races make coaches nervous wrecks because the handoffs have to be perfect.
The 1,600 relay allows time for the drama to unfold and there is still disaster lingering at the congested exchange zone. West Valley won the State 3A boys championship last year by running a close second to East Valley while Columbia River dropped the baton. WV earned eight points for the finish, CR one. The final team standings: WV 40, CR 38.
“Track is a team sport, even though it is mostly individual events, (and) the 4x4 brings that sense of finality to the team goal,” said outgoing Shadle Park coach Ivan Corley. “It’s the last event that actually involves team, four runners.”
Because of that team concept, hesitant recruits end up loving the relay.
“Ask a kid to run an open 400 and they’ll fight it, but they’re more apt to run the relay,” said Mead assistant Vic Wallace, one of the premier sprint coaches in the state. “It’s that team concept, carrying that baton.”
“It’s the heart of the track part of track and field,” Robertson said. “Distance runners can come down, sprinters can come up.”
The race starts out simple enough, with leadoff runners staying in their lane all the way around.
Because it is a three-turn stagger, the second runners can’t cut inside until the beginning of the backstretch.
“A lot can happen – 400 meters is a lot of time for momentum to change,” Corley said. “My philosophy is you want to be in the game from the get-go. In most cases your want your first- or second-fastest runner early.”
The last two exchanges are organized chaos because runners are no longer in assigned lanes, but the handoffs look simple compared to the precision of the 400 relay.
“We practice 4x4 just as much as we practice all the others,” said Corley, whose 2000 quartet of Alex Moon, Nick Kimmet, Cody Storms and Demetrius Scott ranks as Spokane’s fastest (3:17.69).
“It has the same concept if you do it correctly in that you don’t want to slow the baton down. You want the (receiving) person to get off hard and match the incoming runner’s speed. If two teams are teams coming in equal and you do it correctly, your team comes out 2 or 3 meters ahead.”
Generally, everyone watching is screaming and at low-key meets, when athletes are allowed on the infield, they run across the field from the backstretch to homestretch. Runners can get the feeling they are passing through a gantlet.
“The funny thing about a 400 is you never know what you’re going to get from one to next,” Wallace said. “It’s pretty cool when the other kids are running sideline to sidelines.”