Let a, p, q and b be four consecutive numbers in an alternating arrangement. Assume p>q. Then a<p and q<b.
The pair (p,q) is not good if and only if a>b. Therefore, we conclude that (p,q) is not good if and only if p is the largest, and q the smallest number of the quadruple (a,p,q,b).
If (p,q) is not good, then (a,p) is, because a is greater than or equal to q. Furthermore, (q,b) is good because b is not greater than p.
This shows that, of any two pairs sharing an element, at least one is a good pair. We conclude that there are at least 150 good pairs.
Assume that there is an alternating arrangement a1,…,a300 in which there are exactly 150 good pairs.
Without loss of generality, we can assume that a1>a2, and that (a1,a2) is not a good pair. Then (a2k,a2k+1) are both good, while the pair (a2k−1,a2k) is not, for any k=1,2,…,149. We also notice that (a299,a300) cannot be a good pair.
Since (a1,a2) is not good, we conclude that a1>a3. Similarly, since (a3,a4) is not good, we get a3>a5. Continuing this way, we get
a1>a3>a5>⋯>a299>a1,
thus arriving at a contradiction. This shows that it is impossible to have exactly 150 good pairs. Therefore, there must be at least 151 of them.
An example of an alternating arrangement containing exactly 151 good pairs is
3,2,5,4,7,6,…,299,298,300,1.