Splitting the Miles: Distance Relay With a Strategy

An endurance relay where each team of four has to cover 3 kilometers in total and decides how to split the distance: how many legs, how long and in what order. The winner is the team whose plan best matches its prediction, not the fastest, to reward analysis and self-knowledge.

How to play

1. Explain the rules: 3 kilometers in 200-meter laps (15 laps); each member runs at least 3 laps, and each leg is 1, 2 or 3 laps in a row (3 min).
2. Each team plans the order and length of the legs on the worksheet and predicts its total time (6 min).
3. Relay: one member runs while another keeps time and records each leg; the others recover by walking in the exchange zone (15 min).
4. Work out the difference between predicted and actual time; the team with the smallest difference wins (3 min).
5. Each team explains what it would change about its plan and why (3 min).

Rules

• The baton is handed off inside the exchange zone marked with cones, while walking or jogging slowly.
• No one runs more than 3 laps in a row, to avoid excessive effort.
• Predictions and times belong to the team, never to one specific person.
• Anyone not running waits outside the running lane.

Variations

Adaptations

• Low fitness: runs one-lap legs and may alternate running and walking within them.
• Wheelchair user: completes their laps pushing the chair, and the team factors that into its plan.
• Autism: is assigned the fixed role of timekeeper and records times on the worksheet for the whole relay.

Learning goals

• Plan a team strategy for distributing effort.
• Predict performance based on knowledge of one's own abilities.
• Value accuracy and cooperation above speed.

Equipment for a class of 25

• relay batons: 7
• worksheets: 7
• stopwatch: 7
• cones: 4

Teacher tip

Rewarding accurate predictions means very different teams can win, and it gets students talking about real abilities without singling anyone out. If you have more than seven teams, use two exchange zones.

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