Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #83: Gill1918 Project Presents Boo Schexnayder “Coaching the Relays Part 2” at the Illinois Top Times Speed Lab

Transcript

#83: Gill1918 Project Presents Boo Schexnayder “Coaching the Relays Part 2” at the Illinois Top Times Speed Lab · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

• 0:00
  Hey Yank, pumped for this. Here we go.
• 0:02
  Back in August, Randy Anderson of the Illinois Top Time Speed
• 0:06
  Lad hosted A1 day track clinic featuring two of my favorite
• 0:10
  people in the entire world, Boushek Snyder and Vince
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  Anderson. He was gracious enough to allow
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  us to record those presentations for right here on the Gil 1918
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  Project. So for the next six weeks, every
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  Wednesday and Thursday Part 1 and Part 2, we're going to give
• 0:24
  you all those presentations from Boushek Snyder talking about
• 0:27
  hamstrings to Vince Anderson talking about Hurdle.
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  Now, these were video in person type of presentation, so you're
• 0:33
  going to miss a little bit of not seeing the actual
• 0:35
  presentation. However, tons of value here with
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  Boo and Vince every single week for six weeks in a row,
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  Wednesday and Thursday, Part 1, Part 2, Vince Anderson, Booshex
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  Nader, make sure you're listening, make sure you're
• 0:47
  sharing this. And again, shout out to coaches
• 0:49
  like Randy Anderson, who is providing value in coaching
• 0:52
  education to coaches around the country.
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  Thanks again, Randy, we appreciate you.
• 0:56
  Enjoy today's episode. Welcome to the Gil 1918 Project,
• 1:01
  a podcast series by coaches for coaches powered by Gil
• 1:04
  Athletics. Think of this as the Ted Talks
• 1:06
  of track and field coaching. Short, insightful, and packed
• 1:09
  with valuable strategies to help you grow as a coach.
• 1:12
  We'll bring in the once a year track clinic straight to your
• 1:14
  ears daily. Interested in creating your own
• 1:17
  episode? Everyone's welcome to
• 1:18
  participate. Check out the show notes below
• 1:20
  For more information. Now let's get into today's
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  topic. So let's look at the duties of
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  the incoming runner here. OK #1 chore.
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  Run through the zone. OK, if you can pass the person,
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  pass them all right, but run through the zone, all right.
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  That's the key thing there is to understand that running through
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  the zone ultimately, ultimately you have to take those extra few
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  steps. You know, there's a natural
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  tendency once you kind of stick it out and reach to decelerate.
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  So if you are, if you're a little short and aren't quite
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  there yet, you can't lean in. You got to run those two or
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  three extra steps to catch up again.
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  Remember, you're going to be faster than the outgoing runner.
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  It's not a problem to catch him. It's only a problem to catch him
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  if you break down and you reach it's or overextend at that
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  point. So it's always about a maximal
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  effort and it's always running through the zone.
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  When I'm coaching this stuff, I don't allow the incoming runner
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  to stop until they're out of the zone in practice.
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  Like they literally have to run the whole zone in practice.
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  And sometimes I end up with runners in an early exchange,
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  I'll run end up with runners running 15 meters side by side.
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  But all right, that's what we got to do in order to drill this
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  just to make the point of really connecting and running through
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  the entire zone. Now, once again, you're not
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  running a lane, you're running half of a lane.
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  So you can see here now he's going to pass right to left.
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  So the incoming runner here is tucked in over here here on the
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  left side. And as a result of that, you
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  know, the shoulders line up and we're capable of making the
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  connection within the lane. Sometimes in high school it's a
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  little tough because you got tighter lanes or whatever, but
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  you know, we do the best we can. OK.
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  And then the last thing is take advantage of the grasping
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  reflex. You know, when you put your hand
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  like that, if you put something forcefully into your hand,
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  there's a natural tendency of the hand to close to some
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  extent. So pushing it in there in a
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  little bit of a pop right there is a good thing to kind of get
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  that hand to close around the baton in that regard as well.
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  So, so that's basically it there.
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  So incoming runner, you got to give the signal if you coach it
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  that way, run through the zone and just make sure that you have
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  the nice push where they initiate that grasping reflex,
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  so to speak. Now a little bit about visual
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  exchanges. I know this is 4 by 4 stuff, but
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  I'll talk about it a little anyway because there's a couple
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  of points that I find a lot of coaches missing it.
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  Maybe it'll help you. So when we look at the outgoing
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  runner for a four by four exchange, a visual exchange,
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  first thing to notice is that this young man, well, here's the
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  exchange and just take a look at it.
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  OK? First of all, you're line up
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  toward the curb. You're always facing the curb in
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  that regard. So you can peripherally see the
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  curb, you line up away from it. When you turn around, a lot of
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  times you'll end up off the track or step on it.
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  So you line up in the curve. So that peripherally you have it
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  is of course within the zone in that particular, in this
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  particular position. OK, once again, keep your eyes
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  on the prize here, OK? It says here when the incoming
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  runner hits the take off mark, how many of you use a take off
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  mark in your 4 by fours? Some coaches do.
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  Some coaches don't. You know, that's kind of up to
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  you. I'll tell you a funny story.
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  When I was coaching relays back in high school, I'm kind of a,
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  I'm not going to say anal retentive, obsessive compulsive,
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  but I got a little bit of that in me.
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  I wanted to use a take off mark for my 4 by fours.
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  So what I did was this, I, I wouldn't going to put a piece of
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  tape down. What I did was this.
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  I had the athletes line up on the on the on the line right
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  here and they're coming in. They're looking when the athlete
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  would come into the homestretch, I would have them pace off one
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  step, 2 steps and that was their mark.
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  They would literally pace it off and it worked great.
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  But you know, what really was special was that everybody's
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  lined up ready for the baton and all of a sudden all the other
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  teams are like, what the hell are they doing?
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  Where is he going or whatever? And it was a tremendous
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  distraction to the other teams as well.
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  So that was an added bonus of it.
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  But I've seen some coaches who put a little piece of tape back
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  there or I've even seen a coach put a clot of dirt and like
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  grind it into the track back there, whatever.
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  So that being said, if you want to use some kind of take off
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  mark or whatever for 4 by 4, I'm certainly not going to so bad
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  about you. All right, I'm going to respect
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  the fact that you're you're coaching and such, But if you
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  want to gauge it or whatever, you know, I get it.
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  That's fine too. OK, now this is important.
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  This is a point that very few people really pay attention to
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  in the 4 by 4 on a visual exchange, you don't want to look
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  at the baton right away, push out for a couple of steps, then
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  relocate the incoming runner visually.
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  If you do that, it doesn't affect the exchange at all, but
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  it makes a tremendous difference in the quality of the leg you're
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  going to get because you're going to get that initial strong
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  push. So watch this young man as he
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  pushes out. Notice that he's going to push
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  out for a couple of steps, one step, 2 steps of hard pushing.
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  Then he's going to turn around and find the baton instead of
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  worrying about it right away. So you locate the baton, push
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  out strong, turn around, relocate the baton at that
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  point. And once again, it's the same
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  high stationary and it's always going to be a left hand, always
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  a left hand. And then of course, once you get
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  it in the left hand, then you're going to switch it over to the
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  right hand. OK, now the incoming runner,
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  your main duty here is to survive right, right.
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  Like like like you're hurting, you're hurting.
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  But once again, the same thing about running through the zone
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  is critical that that at that point again run through the
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  zone, run to the person, take the extra couple of steps if you
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  to try to get it to them. OK, now let's get back to 4 by 1
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  here. OK, four by one.
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  First of all, we run 4 by ones in lanes, right?
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  That's the configuration of the race.
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  We run it from lanes and we run it from staggered.
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  So everybody's got their own, their own land.
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  Now, I think we all know this, but it's, I should mention it
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  anyway. You know, what we want to do is
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  on the curves, we want to hug the inside of the curve.
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  So I want to carry it in my right hand on the curves and I
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  want to therefore use the left hand on the straightaway.
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  So the configuration for the most part is going to be right,
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  left, right, left. First leg is going to use first
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  and third legs are going to run right-handed baton, 4th, 2nd and
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  4th legs are going to run left-handed batons.
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  All right, and that's pretty standard.
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  I mean, you really can't I can only think of 1 case where that
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  didn't happen. All right, this is a true story.
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  I guess I can tell it. I hate, hate it to be recorded,
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  but like one year, one year we had a really good sprinter who
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  trained with us at at the school I worked at and she was on the
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  national relay team and she went off to a relay to a couple of
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  meets and they were running the relay.
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  The national team was going to run the relay.
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  So she, she comes back and I'm asking how was it?
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  And she's kind of like whatever. And I'm, I'm asking her
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  questions about I can see she's not too happy.
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  And it turns out that politically there was some
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  person that they really wanted to run anchor, you know, and it
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  was a political thing, so to speak, You know, politics
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  unfortunately happened. Had a powerful Asian or
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  something. Anyway, to make a Long story
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  short, this person had to run anchor, but this person couldn't
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  take it in the left hand. So the United States of America
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  ran left, right, left, right in an international competition.
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  I'm glad I wasn't there. I'd have been embarrassed.
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  But that actually happened. That actually happened.
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  And we want to know why we got problems, right?
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  OK. Now, back in the old days, we
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  had that acceleration zone, right?
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  We don't have that anymore. But remember this, the longer
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  you accelerate, the higher velocity you're going to attain
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  when you actually get the baton. So it doesn't make sense not to
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  use the entire zone in a four by one.
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  It just doesn't. I understand there's a
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  philosophy I hear of over once in a while that oh, I want my
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  fast person to get it earlier or something like that, but you're
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  still paying a tremendous price. It really doesn't make sense in
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  the four by one. In the four by two, it's a
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  little different, but in the four by one, it really doesn't
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  make sense. You're super fast person for
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  those first few steps is not faster than your slowest person
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  at top velocity. They're not.
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  So it doesn't make sense. And you want to use the entire
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  zone so that you can actually get up to speed as best as you
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  possibly can. The take off marks, it really
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  depends, you know, who comes in fast, who's not that good coming
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  in, who accelerates well or whatever.
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  I mean, I've seen anywhere from 15 feet to 32 feet being used in
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  four by ones. And it's just a matter of
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  experimentation, to be perfectly honest with you, you know, and
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  coaching. So there's no hard, fast rule
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  about how many steps. You know, typically when I
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  brought a team out there for practice the very first day, I'm
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  normally operating around 22 feet or something like that.
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  But from that point on, you're tweaking, you know, you're
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  always kind of adjusting in those scenarios as well.
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  OK, Now this is, to me, the big, most important slide.
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  Like, how do you use your personnel in these scenarios?
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  These are some considerations. First of all, who's going to run
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  the relay? All right, now I, I, when I was
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  at LSU, true story. We ran low 38 seconds twice with
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  pole vaulters leading off. They're good pole vaulters, like
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  1819 feet people. But the pole vaulters LED off
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  and we won national championship with the pole vaulters leading
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  off. My point is, is just about
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  anybody skinny on your team is likely to be a four by one
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  candidate hurdlers. You know, sometimes we only look
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  in certain areas or only look at the sprinters or whatever the
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  case may be 4 by 1. It could be a long jumper.
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  It could be people like that, you know, and such, OK, who
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  starts out of the blocks will like who's the better starters?
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  All right, you might have a super fast person, but if the
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  real strength and you want them to anchor, but if the real
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  strength of their race is the blocks, well then why not start
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  them off and take advantage of that strength in those
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  scenarios? We had a girl my second time at
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  LSU who was like, phenomenal just for the 1st 60 or 70
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  meters, you know? And she was pretty good on the
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  curve, too. Like, yeah, she could have
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  anchored anybody's relays, but she started off ours because we
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  weren't going to take advantage of that tremendous acceleration
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  she had if we didn't. Who can run a curve?
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  Many fast people are morons on the curve.
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  No, really, Really. A lot of people that run great
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  on straightaways are not good on the curve.
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  So in that situation, finding you two people who are effective
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  on the curve is going to be a challenge.
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  In this scenario, lots of coaches have this thing about
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  using hurdlers on the curve. You know, I've heard a coach say
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  one time that the rhythm of the curve and the rhythm of the
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  hurdles is the same. That's not true, but the fact
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  that hurdlers often work well in the curve is true, and here's
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  the reason why. Simple mechanics or physics.
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  Remember, acceleration is unique to a direction, so if you're
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  changing direction, you are effectively accelerating.
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  So when you're running a curve, every step is an acceleration
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  because you're redirecting to some spot in the hurdles.
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  Every time you come over a hurdle, you are reaccelerating.
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  There's a slight subtle deceleration on every single
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  hurdle. So in short, hurdlers are
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  typically better accelerators. And for that reason, a lot of
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  times they work really well on curves as well.
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  And quite often, like I said, the pole vaulter or the person
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  you're not really thinking of could very well be the person
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  who runs the curve. You know, one other thing is
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  because the curve has acceleration and you never
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  really get to use maximum of velocity on the curve, a lot of
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  people who don't have great top ends actually do really, really
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  well on curves. And it also means that if you've
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  got somebody who's a little injury prone, but you want them
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  on the relay, they might be able to stay healthy on the curve,
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  whereas on the straightaway they're probably going to pull
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  or get injured. So that's another thing to take
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  into consideration who can handle the baton.
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  That's a big one. All right.
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  Yeah, I'm fast. I shouldn't anchor.
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  Not if you've got hands of stone, right?
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  You know, if you have concrete hands, you're not anchoring my
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  relay. Like it's got to be somebody
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  who's, you know, going to be dependable in that scenario, you
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  know? So if you got hands of stone,
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  I'm sorry you're running first leg, you know, but coach, but
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  coach nothing, you know, get some softer hands or practice or
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  whatever and then we'll talk about it.
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  But I'm not going to compromise everybody, you know, just in
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  order to put you, you know, where your ego is telling you
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  that you need to be ultimately. So being able to handle the
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  baton is a big deal. Some people are great stick
• 14:14
  people. You want to put them in the
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  middle so they can handle it twice.
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  Some people are poor stick people.
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  You put them at the start or at the end, so they only got to do
• 14:21
  it once. But still, you know, regardless
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  to say, I remember when I was the Olympic coach, I still
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  remember the little girl from Miami hadn't anchored a relay in
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  her life or, you know, she'd always been a lead off leg.
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  And for some reason she was third.
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  And I still remember. You've heard it.
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  The clink, clink, clink, clink. Yeah, I still remember that, you
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  know? So anyway, handiness is another
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  big deal. If you got a fast left-hander,
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  that's a gift from God, right? Yeah, that's a gift from God.
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  But some people are going to struggle to take it in their
• 14:52
  left. You know, you really want them
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  to run backstretcher, You really want them to run anchor, and
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  they just struggle with the left hand.
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  So the handiness patterns also come into play to some extent as
• 15:02
  well. You're not going to know until
• 15:03
  you get out there and you start practice, OK?
• 15:05
  Your competitiveness has a lot to do with it.
• 15:08
  All right, I don't want an anchor, you know.
• 15:11
  All right, yeah, I got an anchor.
• 15:12
  Anchor is my fast person. All right, great.
• 15:14
  But I don't want an anchor who's going to take it in first and
• 15:17
  hold on to 1st. Anybody can do that.
• 15:19
  But will your anchor like get it in 4th and fight for second?
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  You know, will your anchor get in in 5th and fight to get
• 15:25
  third? You know those that's important,
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  you know, like willing willingness to fight for every
• 15:29
  place. You know, some people have that
• 15:30
  we won or we lost mentality, and to some extent I respect that.
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  But in a meet with a score, you know, points are a big deal.
• 15:38
  So are they competitive? Team positioning is a big deal.
• 15:42
  You know, there's many years when I had like 2 good ones and
• 15:44
  two bad ones and I'm trying to figure out what to do.
• 15:47
  And I could put the two good ones 2nd and 4th like most
• 15:51
  coaches do, but that doesn't put any pressure on anybody.
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  I stole a few races that year because what I did is I put the
• 15:57
  fastest 2 first and 2nd and we were way ahead when nobody
• 16:01
  expected us to be ahead. So everybody on the side of us
• 16:04
  is panicking and taking off too early and kind of freaking out.
• 16:07
  And they don't run their races because of the fact that they
• 16:10
  didn't expect to be losing by that much at that point in the
• 16:14
  race. And then you just kind of hope
• 16:15
  that you're competitive. Not so talented people will just
• 16:18
  kind of hold on and get whatever you can.
• 16:21
  But putting pressure on people puts makes them breakdown at
• 16:25
  times. You know, this, What's the old
• 16:27
  saying, Pressure breaks pipes. And that's true in relay racing
• 16:30
  as well. Who's going to anchor?
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  You know, traditionally it's your fastest person, but it
• 16:36
  doesn't necessarily have to be, you know, sometimes strategy
• 16:39
  will dictate putting the fastest person on the second leg or
• 16:42
  maybe a great box start will put them first blade or whatever the
• 16:45
  case may be. But the bottom line is that
• 16:48
  ultimately the anchor has to be dependable and they has has to
• 16:51
  be somebody that you know is going to be competitive in that
• 16:55
  situation. OK, Speed alone doesn't qualify
• 16:59
  you to be an anchor, but it obviously helps, of course.
• 17:03
  Yeah. So and then other events, like I
• 17:07
  said, sometimes if you got a person who's overloaded
• 17:11
  elsewhere, that might mean you might give that person a break
• 17:14
  from a relay. You know what I'm saying is if
• 17:16
  they have other events that do in the meet, I had people who
• 17:20
  were like stud long jumpers and the long jump always went off at
• 17:23
  the same time as the four by one.
• 17:25
  I really wanted them on the four by one, but I had to run them
• 17:28
  first leg so that I could switch at the last minute if I have to.
• 17:31
  Sometimes the other events or the other things these people
• 17:34
  have on their schedules in that meet on that day might have
• 17:37
  something to do with that or so. So that's something you have to
• 17:40
  be ready for. You know, I never really had
• 17:42
  much sympathy for the coach who says, oh, man, we'd have had a
• 17:45
  great day, but so and so was at the long jump and they they
• 17:48
  didn't get to warm up or, or the other way around.
• 17:51
  Oh, they would have long jumped great.
• 17:52
  But they had you got the time schedule, you know, like shame
• 17:56
  on you if you don't prepare for that, you know.
• 17:58
  So ultimately, you know, I had lots of people who didn't run,
• 18:02
  who ran certain races because I knew they weren't going to
• 18:05
  conflict with a jumping event or vice versa, simply because I
• 18:10
  knew that it was going to happen that way.
• 18:12
  I guess I'm not explaining this well, but I'm saying that look
• 18:15
  at time schedules, look at what you typically encounter in your
• 18:18
  meets. Look at your, if you're a high
• 18:20
  school coach, look at your state meet time schedule, you know,
• 18:23
  and see, is that kid actually going to be able to do those two
• 18:26
  events at the state meet? If they if they can't, then why
• 18:29
  are you doing it now? So those are all considerations,
• 18:33
  you know, long term kind of planning things in that regard.
• 18:36
  OK, all right, a little bit about 4 by 4.
• 18:39
  You know, the race configuration varies a lot of times in high
• 18:42
  school, at least where I live, but maybe not here, you run it
• 18:46
  from A1 turn stagger like the the the first runner cuts in.
• 18:51
  But a lot of places run at three turn staggers where that first
• 18:54
  runner runs the whole their whole lap in a lane and then the
• 18:57
  second runner runs one of the curves in the lane before the
• 19:00
  break point or whatever. So we all know that you're going
• 19:04
  to use visual exchanges obviously in a 4 by 4 and the
• 19:08
  there's no acceleration zone. And again, as we said earlier,
• 19:11
  whether you use a take off marker or not, that's kind of a
• 19:13
  matter of personal preference. If you want to use one, do like
• 19:18
  I didn't walk up in the zone. Whatever you want to do is up to
• 19:21
  you. But again, it's a decision that
• 19:22
  you ultimately have to use or make as a coach.
• 19:26
  So when you look at the four by four, once again, candidates
• 19:31
  become complicated here because it's one of my personal
• 19:35
  philosophies from doing this for a long time, that when you start
• 19:38
  running jumpers and start running 100m people and whatever
• 19:43
  on the 4 by 4 on a frequent basis, a lot of times I think
• 19:47
  you pay a price. You know, I've had tons of long
• 19:50
  jumpers and triple jumpers who would have run really 4 by good
• 19:53
  4x4 legs, but I knew they weren't going to win the
• 19:55
  individual state championship if I ran them on 4 by fours on a
• 20:00
  regular basis. So my philosophy is I'm going to
• 20:02
  find me some quarter mile. This is what I'm trying to try
• 20:04
  to do. I'm not saying never and if the
• 20:07
  trophy is big enough, you do what you have to do.
• 20:09
  But I am saying that, you know, if you're kind of counting on a
• 20:12
  person like that to run the 4 by 4 regularly, at some point in
• 20:16
  time, you're probably going to limit their development.
• 20:18
  There's a huge difference between 400 training and what
• 20:21
  you would do in the jumps or short sprints or things of that
• 20:24
  nature. And you kind of, you got to make
• 20:27
  decisions. You got to make decisions.
• 20:29
  I remember one time and you can train them to do that, but train
• 20:32
  them differently. One time there was I coached at
• 20:35
  a smaller college. There was a young man in the
• 20:37
  Sprint group. He had run 5051 in the quarter
• 20:41
  in high school and he had long jumped 22 feet in high school.
• 20:45
  He was in the Sprint group. Sprint coach didn't want him no
• 20:47
  more, wasn't good enough. Send him to me, Make a long
• 20:50
  jumper out of him. Well, I coached him.
• 20:52
  I coached him, and after a few years he was long jumping over
• 20:55
  25 feet. He was running 1030 something in
• 20:58
  the 100 and he'd run 21 flat. Well, guess what happens?
• 21:02
  Two people get hurt. Guess who's got to run the four
• 21:04
  by one 4x4? This guy, all right, went out
• 21:09
  there and he ran 46 high, ran 46 high had never, but but he had
• 21:14
  done quality based types of stuff.
• 21:16
  But here's my other thing is that yeah, he ran 46 high, but
• 21:19
  if I had to train him like 1/4 Miller, he would have never done
• 21:22
  the other stuff And he but he still did that and he could do
• 21:27
  that. My point is that he couldn't
• 21:28
  have done it every week. So if you have a person like
• 21:31
  that, don't do it all the time. Do it sporadically every so
• 21:34
  often. Maybe run them one time to show
• 21:36
  them that they can do it and then run them one other time
• 21:38
  when you really need it, so to speak.
• 21:40
  So again, those are things to consider.
• 21:42
  Now, other things to consider, who likes to run when they're
• 21:45
  ahead, all right? You know, like sometimes like,
• 21:49
  yeah, I like to run a pretty good person in a 4x4 first, but
• 21:53
  if they're just content to hand off in first place, I don't want
• 21:56
  them. No, I'm serious.
• 21:58
  I don't want like, like, like if you could give me a 15 meter
• 22:01
  lead and all you're doing is just being happy to come in and
• 22:04
  be in first place that that doesn't do me any good.
• 22:07
  So, you know, are you going to give me an honest effort in that
• 22:09
  regard? You know, some people are also
• 22:11
  demons when they're behind, right?
• 22:13
  All right. Some people are demons when
• 22:15
  they're behind. If you give them a baton and
• 22:16
  there's somebody in front of them, they run much, much
• 22:19
  better. Some people are fools when
• 22:20
  they're behind, All right. I had I had a lead off person
• 22:24
  one time that was undependable and what would happen is that he
• 22:29
  would run a bad leg. So my pretty good second leg
• 22:32
  went out too hard trying to catch up.
• 22:34
  My third leg ran crappy because not used to running behind.
• 22:37
  So like 1 bad leg. One undependable person was
• 22:41
  screwing up three other people. So what did I have to do?
• 22:44
  I either had to flip the whole thing around or put one on the
• 22:47
  bench. I put one on the bench in that
• 22:50
  case. So again, you know, who's
• 22:52
  willing to run from the head, who does a good job ahead
• 22:54
  behind, who's going to give you an honest effort, who's got a
• 22:57
  sense of pace? You know, if you're running from
• 22:59
  a three turn stagger, you're not going to feel anybody on the
• 23:02
  side of you, you know, so you got to kind of be a self starter
• 23:05
  in that regard and you got to be somebody who's going to
• 23:07
  ultimately be able to self motivate, so to speak.
• 23:11
  If you're looking for somebody to push you in a three person in
• 23:14
  a three turn stagger and you want somebody to run on the side
• 23:19
  of you, that ain't going to happen.
• 23:22
  So so these are all things to consider that I think are pretty
• 23:26
  important in regard. Y'all run four by two here.
• 23:30
  You do yeah, you're running indoors.
• 23:34
  Yeah, four by two indoors. That's like roller Derby, right?
• 23:39
  When it comes yeah when it comes to when it comes to four by two
• 23:42
  men, let me tell you four by two indoors, my strategy fastest
• 23:46
  person first second fastest Perkins seconds they're Alex
• 23:50
  like front stack it because if you get you know the traffic is
• 23:53
  a mess, right, OK it's like driving in Los Angeles like
• 23:57
  there's just ain't no easy answer.
• 23:58
  Just get out in front of it and that's the only thing that you
• 24:00
  can ultimately do. But you know, when it comes to
• 24:02
  outdoors, I assume outdoors, y'all running in lanes, the
• 24:06
  whole racing lanes with the big stagger.
• 24:07
  Yeah Now when it comes to four by twos, I've done all kinds of
• 24:11
  stuff like I'll be honest with you, I there were years I used
• 24:15
  modified visual exchanges like I did the Marks and we actually
• 24:18
  did visual exchanges with kind of a big spacing and and marks
• 24:22
  whatever we did that before. There's some coaches who will go
• 24:27
  right, left, right, left with blind exchanges and they do it
• 24:29
  that way simply because it mimics what they do in the four
• 24:32
  by one right. You know, some coaches will do
• 24:36
  it differently. Some coaches will use a hand
• 24:38
  switch because they always want on the inside.
• 24:40
  There's so many different ways to do a four by two.
• 24:42
  It's really, you really just got to kind of decide what you want
• 24:45
  to do and ultimately stick with it, but just don't let your four
• 24:48
  by two screw up your 4 by 1. You know, I remember one time I
• 24:53
  had a, it was a young lady and anyway, to make a Long story
• 24:57
  short, we're running, it's an early season beat.
• 24:58
  We're running four by two. Somebody's struggling coming in.
• 25:02
  So she kind of throttles it down a little bit and takes the
• 25:04
  baton, you know, So I pat her on the back after the race.
• 25:07
  That was smart. Good job, you know, you know,
• 25:10
  good thinking that you, you know, slowed down and got the
• 25:13
  baton or whatever. Guess what, she did a few in
• 25:16
  Louisiana. You run 4 by 1 after guess what
• 25:18
  she did in the four by one exactly like I pat her on the
• 25:21
  back. She went out and did it again
• 25:23
  and screwed my 4 by 1 up. So so my point is, is that just
• 25:26
  make sure that you live by the sword, die by the sword.
• 25:28
  You know, you have to be able to take those things into
• 25:31
  consideration. So again, you know, when it came
• 25:34
  to running 4 by twos, what I eventually settled on for the
• 25:37
  most part was a just a right, left, right, left pattern.
• 25:41
  But the team in our state in the other division that habitually
• 25:45
  one state, they always, always did right, left exchanges with
• 25:49
  a, with a hand switch, blind exchange with a hand switch.
• 25:53
  So do what you want to do, OK, But it's that in between relay
• 25:58
  that you know and the other thing about a four by two, you
• 26:01
  can kind of practice a four by one exchange.
• 26:04
  You know, you can use about a 45 meter run in and you're going to
• 26:07
  be pretty close to the velocities you're going to be at
• 26:09
  in the meet. You can practice it.
• 26:11
  You get ahead of down four by two, that's almost impossible.
• 26:14
  The only chance you really get to evaluate it well is in the
• 26:17
  meet itself quite often. So you just don't have the
• 26:20
  practice opportunities. So again, if you expected a
• 26:24
  speaker here who was going to tell you exactly what to do and
• 26:26
  get it perfect, I ain't got that answer.
• 26:29
  You know, we always did well in it, but we struggled with these
• 26:32
  issues and I think every team to some extent does.
• 26:35
  If you you're a little unsure about it, you're probably OK
• 26:39
  because the reason you're unsure is because it's a tough race.
• 26:44
  It's a tough race to figure out. We OK any questions?
• 26:51
  Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this
• 26:54
  episode of the Guild 1918 Project series.
• 26:57
  It's really my mission, my passion to bring you massive
• 27:01
  amounts of value and I hope this one hit the mark.
• 27:04
  The Guild 1918 Project is really dependent on you if for you to
• 27:09
  build your own episode, to hear your voice, to have your voice
• 27:12
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• 27:16
  there. So please get a hold of me,
• 27:18
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  and let's help create your episode of the Guild 1918
• 27:26
  Project. Hope you enjoy today, they will
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