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The answer to this is yes and no. The race never shortens, however the amount of time each athlete spends with a baton is subject to change.

You can stretch out and shorten legs, but it takes some coaching. We use a tape mark system to cue our outgoing runners when to leave the international mark to begin building up speed. By setting the "go" mark further away from your 3rd leg, you can lengthen the 2nd leg's race by making him travel further through the zone to catch his outgoing teammate.

Likewise, you can also shorten the leg up by setting a closer go mark to your anchor so that the anchor ends up taking the baton at the beginning of the zone, while he's still building momentum.

It's a gamble and may take some micromanagement to keep the baton in the proper zones, but it can be done.

One trick I've learned to preventing the athlete from running away is to call for the baton "stick" early. The longer that the outgoing runner has his arm extended, the more braking forces are applied.

"By setting the "go" mark further away from your 3rd leg, you can lengthen the 2nd leg's race by making him travel further through the zone to catch his outgoing teammate. "

Thats as good as it gets man. I always tell my athletes to run through the exchange zone and we always practice on making the exchange in the deepest part of the zone. It takes a lot of practice. The objectice of the relay is how fast the baton travels around the track. So as coachs I make coach all my athletes to be fast as they can possibly be when receiveing the baton. Granted the outgong runner is most likely going to be at 95% when he recieves the baton in the deepest part of the zone but by that time the incoming runner is begining to deaccelerate. So by having the exchange take place in the deepest part of the zone you have optimized the speed of the baton around the track.