Just when you think you’ve seen everything, something else comes along that leaves you in complete disbelief. This past week, I went to a track meet with my daughter to watch a few of my athletes and this was one of those times.

Unfortunately, I’m getting to the age where I can say, “I’ve seen a lot of things happen in a track meet.” But, I hadn’t seen THIS.

It was a tri-meet (3 schools participating) and my athletes at this meet went to Bishop Watterson. It was the last event, the 4×400 (mile) relay. One of my favorites and Watterson had two teams competing, along with the other two schools. So 4 relay teams.

I had one athlete on both Watterson relays.

The gun went off and there they went. The leadoff runners did their laps and passed it off to the 2nd legs. The 2nd legs came through and passed it off to the 3rd legs. Well almost all of the 2nd legs finished.

I didn’t notice until the 3rd legs were passing the 200, but one school still had their 2nd runner running (if that is what you want to call it). The anchors couldn’t line up in proper order yet because that school still had their 3rd leg waiting for the baton.

Down the homestretch they all come and all three 3rd legs pass the 2nd leg of the one school and get the baton to their anchors before the 2nd leg runner finally passed it off to her 3rd leg.

THIS TEAM GOT LAPPED IN A MILE RELAY!!

How does that happen?? The 3rd runner on that team wasn’t any faster. My daughter was wondering aloud if she was hurt because of how slow she was moving. No, she wasn’t hurt, just going at a nice comfortable jog…for a 70 year old.

The anchors of the other three relays all finished before this 3rd leg got her baton to her anchor. This anchor wasn’t a speedster, but at least she was running. So we all had to sit and wait while this person ran a 400M leg all by herself.

Now I’ve seen people get lapped in the mile race, but never in the mile relay.

What lesson is this coach trying to teach here? Is it doing these athletes any good for us to give the obligatory clap as they are looking like they are putting forth no effort running down the homestretch?

I have no problem cheering on the lesser talented individuals who are finishing up a race, as long as they look like they are trying. Just a little bit, that’s all I ask.

Those middle two runners should have not been put on that relay team. It was flat out embarrassing. I have no clue what was going on with those athletes or that coach, but those two high school athletes ran two of the slowest 400’s I’ve ever seen.

I hope it is just a lack of talent. A lot of lack of talent! You can at least try to find other events for them to do. But, if they just flat out dogged it on purpose because they didn’t want to run the event, I’d kick them off the team. Show some pride and show some respect to your opponents.

Alright, I’ll get down off my soapbox for today. Enjoy your week and we’ll have an awesome post next week.

Photo courtesy of William Warby on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/wwarby/