The Virginia track team will travel to North Carolina Friday to compete in the Raleigh Relays. The sprinters will be competing in the sprint medley, which is comprised of two 200-meters, a 400-meter and an 800-meter race. The middle and long distance runners will be running the 4x1500 and 4x800 meters Saturday.
"We are primarily going to go to the meet to have fun with a lot of different relays," Virginia coach Randy Bungard said.
Since it is still early in the spring season, Bungard hopes to use the relays as a training tool for future meets.
"The best practice for a race is to race," Bungard said.
Two of the sprint relays this weekend will be the men and women's 4x100 meter. The 4x100 is the fastest relay and has to be run differently than the distance relays. Since each person only covers one quarter of the track, the baton hand-offs have to be quick and precise.
"The 4x100 is a relay where the timing is really important." Bungard said.
Junior Tiffany Roberts, sophomore Janne'a Bridgeford, freshman Talia Wise and junior Tomika Ferguson make up the team that will race this weekend. On the men's side, sophomore Reuben Jones, senior Kellen Blassingame, freshman Tyler Hendry and senior Isi Azeke will be running the relay.
Within the relays, each runner is selected for a certain leg of the race based on his or her individual strengths. The lead runners for the relays, Roberts and Jones, were chosen to run the first leg because of their quick starts out of the blocks and their ability to run curves well.
In addition to running well, athletes in the relays need to be able to skillfully complete hand-offs. The hand-offs for different relays differ greatly. In the hand-offs for sprinting relays the women use an underhand sweep while the men use an overhand hand-off.
In the distance relays, however, both men and women use a visual underhand. The runners have to depend on each other to complete the hand-offs smoothly or run the risk of falling behind. When someone drops a baton, it cuts off seconds that are crucial in a race as quick as the 4x100.
"I believe that relays affect team chemistry positively," Wise said. "The members of your team become closer because you must support each other and because you are all contributing to the same goal."
The relays are unique in track because normally each person is competing individually. Individual points for a win in an event contribute to the overall team score. With the relay events, the runners actually get to run together.
"If the relay team is successful, we all have the same feelings of accomplishment and team unity," senior sprinter Kellen Blassingame said.
As the runners look forward to the ACC Outdoor Championships, April 20 or 21, they will focus on developing their individual events as well as developing the team as a whole.
"It's a lot of fun for the kids, Bungard said. "I think they really enjoy running with each other and for each other instead of just going out and trying to run a time."
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