4x1600m relay

Sometimes it is a real thrill to race and this weekend was no exception. We had assembled two teams for a 4x1600m stand-off at the Truman Bodden Stadium:

• Team A - Dave, Samuel, Jasper, Scott
• Team B - Mark, Russ, JP, Marius

The teams were created using expected finishing times, the idea being to even it up and make it as exciting as possible.

Dave gave Team A a good start, beating Mark by about 5 seconds. Dave passed the batten to Samuel who managed to keep Russ behind him for nearly a lap. However, Russ proved to strong for Samuel and by the time Russ handed the batten to JP he had created a considerable lead. I was running third and started out fast in an attempt to close the gap. By the start of the second lap I reduced the pace to not burn out too quickly and kept it nearly constant for the third lap. Seemingly not making lots of progress in catching JP I increased the pace for the final lap and could start to see it closing (I also think JP slowed) and by the time I handed over to Scott, Team B had about 100m on us. Below is footage of Scott and Marius on the last lap. Scott narrowly managed to win it for our team clocking a 65 fourth and final lap to finish off.


My splits are shown below (note that Scott had me down for a 5:00.3 split):


All in all, I'm pretty happy with my run, especially considering I was faster than expected. I probably went out a bit too fast, but was able to run a strong final lap. With more experience I would probably be able to run a better race, but the distance is never going to be one I train specifically for anyway. It is more about the excitement of the race and having a lot of fun.