Order of a 4X8

[Milesofsmiles15]

what should the order be from 1- fastest, to 4- slowest

i was going to make a poll, but there are too many options, just say it like 1234 4321 etc

edit- we always seem to do 3421 or 4132
edit- i think the only reason we do 3421 is that the 3 guy can't take a hand off very well

[zoomwaffleswithsyrup]

2 - 4 - 3 - 1

[AzN at LARGE]

2 - 4 - 3 - 1
That's what I like.

[Running-Hughes]

My old team when i was on it ran our fastest times when we went 4(me)-3-2-1 now it was extremely fast but we improved greatly and placed 5th at districts. But this year with my brother on the team they started out 3-2-4-1 and 3-4-2-1 and ran their two slowest times, and since they have gone 1-2-3-4 they have ran faster each time out.

[OldMiler]

Think this depends on the squad - for instance we have some runners who run much better than others with a lead.


That's what I like.

[Iron Man]

2-3-4-1

[vagy]

2-3-4-1

its nice to have a good anchor. let the first guy get out there, 3 hang on, 4 dont loose it too much, 1 bring us home.

[Iron Man]

2-3-4-1

its nice to have a good anchor. let the first guy get out there, 3 hang on, 4 dont loose it too much, 1 bring us home.
QFE

[Big Al 2112]

It depends on the other teams in the race. If you are going against better teams then you have to run fast to slow so that you are at least in the race. If you start with someone slow then you may never be in the race. That also leads to guys using too much energy to try and catch back up. Ideally you would probably go 2, 3, 4, 1 like the previous poster said.

[JKarp 17]

we go 1-3-4-2, and im our last guy, im not good at pacing but i have a kick. So i hoover with the guy the whole way till the top of the last turn then i just go all out n blow him away. I DONT KNOW HOW TO PACE bymyself lol. Im usually lead off or anchor

[coolrunnings]

it really depends on how close your 1 and 2 are, if your 2 is pretty close to your one (within 2 seconds) i would say you could either have 1 or 2 lead off, but if the 2nd best leg is much more than 3 seconds further, you would want your 1 to anchor the race imo.

[Andrew Carey]

It's not just how fast each member runs. Some people run faster when put in different positions. Like me, I ran faster when I was the last guy and had to make up time. There's so many things that affect this. You really have to experiment to a degree and go then go with what is fastest and makes everyone somewhat happy.

[maggie]

depends on the team members--but i like
4-3-2-1
lets the fastest/experienced person establish the race and when you reach the 4th leg, hope that they are competive enough to hold out- it will push them to run harder

[CornathaCantersmack]

here's an example for our team.
tomorrow we know we're going against a team with 2 really strong guys (1:54, 1:56) and we're assuming they're going to be the 3-4 runners. We're answering with 2 (2:03) 1 (1:58) 4 (2:10) 3 (2:06). but of course that is a very specific situation.
If we were going into a race with no knowledge of the other team(s) we usually go 3,2,4,1

[TrackSam]

3-4-2-1

[VoidSix]

2-4-3-1

Everyone runs better from behind, but you don't want to be so far behind that you completely are out of the competition mentally. So get your second guy out there and let him get to the front of the pack-ish, your fourth guy will lose it a little, but since the middle legs are generally the weakest not nearly as much as he would from another location. Then the third guy just hangs on and gets the baton to the anchor close enough to take it away.

My 4x800 team last year ran with this strategy (although our 2&3 runners were identical almost in time, which helped) to win our regional.

(1:59) - 2nd, (2:12) - 4th, (1:59) - 2nd, (1:55) - 1st.

That way, we were only in the lead of the race for about 75 meters.

[bdaniels]

It depends on the other teams in the race.

Major QFE! We use to do 2-3-4-1, but in highly competitive meets (i.e., state), it can be crowded and easy to get boxed in. One year, our lead off leg got boxed in and pushed to the back. So, our coach figured it would be best to send our fastest guy out so that the others don't have to deal with a crowd.

I'd probably go with 1-3-4-2 in a highly competitive meet.

bd

[Fantasticate]

You should always try out a lot of combinations throughout the season. My team always ran 2-3-4-1, but we were always around .8 seconds of each other.

[lasseviren]

when my HS ran 7:57 and won at mobile, our order was 2-3-4-1. but then we led 7 out of the 8 laps too. the only lap we didn't lead was lap 1.

[1500thru10K]

slowest to fastest.

easier to run from behind then in front.

[Rhodes-Devey]

2
3
4
1

[Sully 800]

As many people have said, there is no "right" answer. It depends on the differences between each of your legs, hwo each member prefers to run (with a crowd or chasing) and the quality of the other teams.

Last year our 2 and 3 were basically identical. Overal times were 1- 1:55, 2/3- 1:59, 4- 2:01 (but was 2:03 most of the season).

We would usually go 2431, with me on leadoff because I run much better with a group around me. If I bombed or got in trouble we would usually switch it to 2341, but if we were really out of it we might go 2143.

[Hector The Inspector]

My team used to do 2 - 4 - 3 - 1

We've moved on from that though and now like to switch it up depending on the teams we race. The time we ran our best though we ran 3 - 4 - 2 - 1 so that seems to do well.

But really... it depends on the other teams and what they're racing.

[Beans]

You gotta put your most consistant runner up first. The guy who you can guarentee is goign to run his time.

Than you wanna put the guy whose a bit inconsistant, the one who may run average or really well.

Next you just gotta put your gamer, the guy who will kill himself to stick with the front and can compete with anybody.

Last, your top gun or as I like to call, your "Michael Jordan"

[AzN at LARGE]

You gotta put your most consistant runner up first. The guy who you can guarentee is goign to run his time.

Than you wanna put the guy whose a bit inconsistant, the one who may run average or really well.

Next you just gotta put your gamer, the guy who will kill himself to stick with the front and can compete with anybody.

Last, your top gun or as I like to call, your "Michael Jordan"
I like this.

[Swoosh13]

1-3-4-2

[Sully 800]

You gotta put your most consistant runner up first. The guy who you can guarentee is goign to run his time.

Than you wanna put the guy whose a bit inconsistant, the one who may run average or really well.

Next you just gotta put your gamer, the guy who will kill himself to stick with the front and can compete with anybody.

Last, your top gun or as I like to call, your "Michael Jordan"

And that will work if you have 4 racers who meet that criteria. Many times, there would be one guy on the team that fits 3 of those characteristics. What do you do then?

[AzN at LARGE]

And that will work if you have 4 racers who meet that criteria. Many times, there would be one guy on the team that fits 3 of those characteristics. What do you do then?
I think if you fudge them around a little, it will work out to have four guys to fit those four criteria. I'd say the fourth takes priority over the others though if someone fits three. My team's pretty random/not that good and we have four guys who totally fit the criteria.

[kang6789]

3-1-4-2

[the430miler]

the best order for a 4x8 is 2 4 3 1.

[SummerMiles]

My team doesn't do well trying to catch up, so usually I go first and get a lead. So 1-3-4-2

[Sully 800]

the best order for a 4x8 is 2 4 3 1.

Once again, there are many variables that you aren't taking into consideration

[ag771989]

for the most part 2341

[the430miler]

order is important, but not as much as everyone doing their personal best. ive seen a 1 guy go to a 4 guy, and a 4 guy run like a 1 guy, all in 1 race. so if everyone doesnt run their best, theres no point in having an order. the thing you have to realize about middle distance is that it is the worlds longest sprint. theres a huge difference between a 159 and a 2:00, every second counts. all in spite, i still belive 2 4 3 1

[xccolonel]

It varies with how much of a difference there is between your guys. So here is an example using my team.

Our runners are:
1:53
1:57
1:58
2:01

So, we always go 3-4-2-1. This seems to work well because our 3rd fastest guy goes out fast and runs best if he can be in the lead and take control of the race. Then our #4 guy goes 2nd so he will hopefully be right up at the front of the race and try to keep it in the top 2 or 3 places. Then our #2 guy goes next because he runs best from behind. Since most people run their slowest guy 3rd, he can nearly always put us back in the lead or close to it. Then we run our fastest guy as anchor because he is a great competitor. He runs as fast as he has to to get the win. They also run the same order in a 4xMile.

[tigercoach]

Interesting question. It depends on the disparity in times as others have said. We were going 3-4-1-2. But we didn't have much disparity in times. It was because 3 ran the best in a true race. 4 runs the same no matter what leg. 1 always puts us up, and the difference between 1 and 2 was negligible in time but 2 is a 57s quarter miler (girl) and 1 is a 58.5 quartermiler. We wanted teh bail out speed. Now one has a muscle strain but still is racing well with modified training so we are going 1-3-4-2 for the state series. Rationale being 1 was top 8 in the state pre injury and she's still top 15 post injury, so she can keep us up there. 3-4 have both qualified for state in the open 800 in their careers so they can run well with about anybody except the really upper crust. 2 is really the new number one so we'll leave her there and use her bail out speed if we need it. We'll see what happens.

Tiger Coach

[Swifty]

1-2-3-4 because its a psychological thing over your opponents when you have a huge lead.

[NikeRunner23]

In high school we ran 2-4-3-1.

[bdaniels]

1-2-3-4 because its a psychological thing over your opponents when you have a huge lead.

That'd be a wonderful idea if all of your runners ran times that were close together. If that applied to our team best team, it might have worked: 1:56, 1:59, 1:59, 2:01. But, it probably wouldn't work if you had a 2:08 anchor facing a 1:55 opponent who can't wait to eat him up. haha. But, I like your idea as it applies to psychology. I'd add that you can usually count on your fastest leg to run consistent times (e.g., 1:56) whereas your slowest leg may very from race to race (e.g., 2:01-2:05).

bd

[BPearson]

It depends what the talent on your team is. Last year we had myself (2:01), a kid who ran 2:02, a 2:17 kid, and a 2:14 kid. We had the 2:02 kid go first, then me, then we tried to get the slower kids on our team to go faster since they were always near the lead once they got the stick after the first and second leg. In my opinion:

2,1,3,4

But if you have 4 guys with a four or five second spread:

2,4,3,1

[JerseyDan]

2-4-3-1 for us

[urinXcountrynow!]

we go 1-4-3-2. it really depends on the composition of your team. our fastest girl doesnt have much sprint speed, while the second fastest is more likely to outkick someone in an 800 race. we basically put the slowest girl 2nd so she doesnt screw stuff up for us too bad and so we have time to make up for her.

[Miler 2005]

Well it depends on how well people take hand-offs as well as how well people can run on their own (if they're way out front), how well people can run from behind, and if they don't get nervous being the anchor leg.

We had a kid who was fairly new to the 800, but still ran 1:56. However, we weren't sure if he could handle anything other than being in an actual 800 race, so we made him go first just so we could secure a 1:56 performance out of him.

I went second because I had the 2nd fastest 800 time on the team(1:55) and we wanted to secure a lead for our 3rd leg who was a freshman and had only run sub 2:00 a couple of times. I knew myself too well to go 3rd and let the freshman go 2nd because I would have gone out way too hard to make up lost ground and ended up dying with 200 meters to go.

We put our fastest guy on the team (1:52) as our anchor. We did this mostly because every other team had their fastest guy going last and because he is known for come from behind victories.

We ended up running a 7:45, but only got 2nd place because our the 3rd leg only ran 2:01 instead of the 1:58 we were hoping for. That and the 3rd leg of the winning team split 1:54.

The point is, you have to look at all the variables and make a decision. There is no "right" way.

[Wizard]

2-3-4-1

QFE

[runnerguy]

Backloading has worked well for us

3-4-2-1

[wilson]

We go 1 4 3 2.

[nfrunnaya]

According to splits, Jesuit's CA State leading time went 1-3-2-4, but by pr the order is 2-4-3-1...

[dunes runner]

There is no best way to do this, unless it is this way.

4 - 3 - 2 - 1

[riggles]

The best team I've been on went 3 4 1 2. We thought we were doing 3 4 2 1 but the kid who was the second guy ended up running a second or two faster than me.

[riggles]

The best team I've been on went 3 4 1 2. We thought we were doing 3 4 2 1 but the kid who was the number 2 guy ended up running a second or two faster than me.

[AzN at LARGE]

This is what we'll be doing on Saturday:

1- Run a guy who's never ran the 800 so he has people to pace with. Basically insert least experienced runner here.
2- Slowest guy here hoping he'll be with the pack and have some people to pace with.
3- Experienced 800 guy here so even if there aren't too many guys around him at this point he'll know what to do.
4- Our best guys comes in here although he's somewhat inexperienced.