Average high school distance runner 4 x 400 relay team vs El G over 1600m

i don't know what you are looking for here, but in my experience

a 4x200 beating Rudisha is the easiest one here.

4x400 beating El G is next easiest

a 4x1 beating rudisha would be the most difficult to put together of the three.

What do we think Rudisha is in a 400? 45.5 at worst (he did this) 44.5 at best?

Any high school with 4 distance runners capable of a 56 is waaaaaaay better than average.

Which only shows how waaaaaaaay slower than El G everyone is

Bad Wigins wrote:

Any high school with 4 distance runners capable of a 56 is waaaaaaay better than average.

Which only shows how waaaaaaaay slower than El G everyone is

Idk about this one, maybe it’s cause my highschool team constantly hammered anaerobic intervals, but we had me running around 53, 2 guys around 55, and a 57ish guy my senior year for a distance 4x4. We were also the epitome of average

yeah i don't think averaging 56 is too outrageous for a decent distance squad that does a lot of 200 reps and such. my HS of ~600 in rural wisconsin could do this or at least come close, so really it depends how you define "average" in this case.

the 4x1 is a taller order if we're still talking about distance kids. tougher handoffs and i personally don't think i ever broke 13 even though i was one of our best 800 guys (though i only tried a couple times).

CarlyRaeJepsensMalort wrote:

yeah i don't think averaging 56 is too outrageous for a decent distance squad that does a lot of 200 reps and such. my HS of ~600 in rural wisconsin could do this or at least come close, so really it depends how you define "average" in this case.the 4x1 is a taller order if we're still talking about distance kids. tougher handoffs and i personally don't think i ever broke 13 even though i was one of our best 800 guys (though i only tried a couple times).

If you cant break 13 in the 100 what did you run in the 200? And if you can't break 26 in the 200 what did you run in the 400 and what was the pace of all those 200s when you did reps?

My better distance runners were able to run under 55 but I think the average distance kid ran around 58. I think I was an average distance kid in HS (4:52 and 10:14) and I never broke 60 in the 400 and 28 in 200. I was in my early 20s when I finally broke 60.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Any high school with 4 distance runners capable of a 56 is waaaaaaay better than average.

Which only shows how waaaaaaaay slower than El G everyone is

I agree with you if you only consider 1600m & 3200m guys. If 800m guys are included, plenty of high schools with 800m guys with sub-57 400m.

who is a distance runner in h.s? wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

Any high school with 4 distance runners capable of a 56 is waaaaaaay better than average.

Which only shows how waaaaaaaay slower than El G everyone is

I agree with you if you only consider 1600m & 3200m guys. If 800m guys are included, plenty of high schools with 800m guys with sub-57 400m.

That was my thought. 4x400 teams seem okay if they have 800 guys. They really struggle if they have 10:30 3200 specialists in their 4x400.

1500m-enthusiast wrote:

Assume the relay team is made up of 800 / 1600 guys who are decent at handoffs. Was bored trying to think of some interesting, "fair" matchups that no one really does so why not.

I was in a conference for very small schools in high school, and I'd be pretty surprised if any of those schools couldn't put together a 3:40 team made exclusively out of distance runners. We had meets all the time, and there was a rotating cast of people running the 4x400, so I got to see a lot of distance guys tackle it. If you ran slower than 53, you were giving up noticeable ground on your leg.

Posters on this website are not a realistic sample of U.S. T&F athletes and are not a realistic sample of interest in all T&F events. This website is disproportionately represented by guys who cannot sprint sub-60 400m. Posters ask questions about difficulty of high school 4 x 400m teams racing sub-3:42 (3:43.13 mile is equal to sub-3:42 4 x 400m), of course there will be a lot of guys posting stating 800m & 1600m guys cannot sprint sub-3:42 4x400m relay. Keep 1600m guys out of this and of course 800m guys can do 4 x 400m sub-3:42. From what I see, states that race 4 x 800m as a standard T&F event tend to produce a lot of sub-8:20 4 x 800m relay performances. For one reason or another, states that race 4 x 800m as a standard event, gals & guys going out for T&F know they will have an opportunity to be an 800m specialist. Both futbol & Am. football players will show up to race 800m and 4 x 800m relay.

The question is 800/1600 guys? Is this a joke. We had 75 guys on the XC team. Of those guys, 13 ran a split of 56 or faster. We could have assembled 4 teams faster than him from distance runners at one high school.

I suspect we're among the average. When you see sub 8:20 relays you're looking at the better teams not the average teams. What do you need to qualify for a state meet? What do you need to qualify for the indoor national meet? 8:20 is better than average especially if we're considering 4 average distance runners.

The poster asked about the average distance kid making up the relay not the average relay.

If you take a HS team of 40 kids I doubt the average distance kid is running 56 or better. Of course the good ones are running 53 or better but not the average. I had no speed and couldn't break 60, I wasn't fast enough to be on any relay but I was an average distance runner.

HS was 15 years ago and i didn't keep super detailed logs, but i do know that i was pretty reliably a 56.X split on distance 4x4 my senior year. never on fresh legs. in college i think i did a 55.X once after doing a 1500 earlier in the meet.

if we were really gunning it on a 200 i could maybe touch high 26. probably only did it once or twice and honestly that might have been a rolling start. fastest reps i ever hit that consistently were high 28/low 29 if it was a "goal 800 pace" type of session. our team focused on the 4x8 pretty heavily and we ran a 7:58 at the state meet my senior year. my split at that meet was 1:59.X and that was the only time in my life i've ever broken 2 (yes, i know it doesn't really count lol.) from a standing start i really doubt i could've broken 13. i vaguely remember doing an "all out" 100 as part of a workout once and it was in the 13s. i was a lanky kid with sh!tty form and average athleticism (for a decent track athlete at least.) i could dunk a tennis ball (i'm 6'1") in those days but still my vertical was only like 24.

You were better than average for a distance kid.

Regarding 4x800s the Adidas national meet in Virginia requires 8:05 or better, the standard for the new balance meet in NY is 8:08 for the elite race and 8:15 for their rising stars race.

I coached h.s. track and liked running endless relays. 5 average guys running 200m 10 times for a total of 10,000 meters. They never came within a minute of the 10,000 WR.

No doubt, nationwide sub-8:20 4 x 800m relay are top 1/3 in the nation 4 x 800m relay performances. If a state has 4 x 800m as a standard event, gals & guys are allowed to train as 800m specialists. Most likely not the case if no 4 x 800m relay as a standard event. Look on Athletic.net. States with 4 x 800m relay as a standard event are nearly always deeper at 800m than states that do not have 4 x 800m as a standard event. It is easier to convince 2nd or 3rd string high school Am. football receivers whom are 5th to 10th fastest sprinters on high school Am. football team to go out for T&F as 800m specialists if said football players knows only: 4 x 400m (maybe B relay team), 4 x 800m, 800m and medleys.

True but every team that runs 8 flat could spread those 4 guys out to several relay teams at their own school to run 8:20. So there really are significantly more relay teams that could be assembled than what it appears.

not an official wrote:

The question is 800/1600 guys? Is this a joke. We had 75 guys on the XC team. Of those guys, 13 ran a split of 56 or faster. We could have assembled 4 teams faster than him from distance runners at one high school.

The 13 fastest ran 56 or better, not the average. What were the times of the 30th through 40th runners?

Well, my team was well above average. Our distance 4x400 could run 3:25-3:28 consistently. We had two 50s, a 52, and a 53-55 depending on how hard the guy tried. Our distance times were 4:09, 4:09, 4:17, and 4:35. At least we would have crushed El G in the 1600 if we were doing the 4x400.

What the hell kind of team cant average sub 55 in a 4x400? It's conceivable that the weak leg can only run a 57 or a 56, but there's gotta be at least one guy in your High School who can run a sub 54.

El G shouldnt be able to stand a chance against the majority of HS relay teams.