After finishing the 2003 indoor track and field season with a fifth-place finish at the Missouri Valley Conference meet for both the men and women, the Illinois State track and field teams are ready to start anew and both can do that at the Alabama Relays, set for this weekend in Tuscaloosa, Ala. It marks the start of the 2003 outdoor season for the Redbirds.
Teams from over 50 schools will participate in the prestigious event being held at the Sam Bailey Track and Field Stadium on Bamas campus. Among the schools participating are Georgia Tech, Auburn, Mississippi, Maryland, Louisville and Valley foe Drake.
Illinois State head coach Elvis Forde is ready to get outside and knows this weekends competition will be tough, but is looking forward to the challenge and seeing how his teams handle its fierce competitors.
I am going to hope my kids are ready to start outdoor season, Forde said. We should have some beautiful weather, which makes a difference in terms of how things go. I expect our kids, at least for the first meet, to perform well and start the outdoor season on a good note. I feel good about the possibilities of our performances and look forward to establishing a spring-board effect for here on out.
Forde hopes his athletes are focused.
There is always a little concern to start the outdoor season, Forde said. We hope our kids are much sharper in the outdoor season than we were indoors however, we are looking to experiment kids in outdoor and see where they can help us to prepare for the Valley Outdoor Championships in May.
Hoping to carry over their success from the indoor season to the outdoors are Jen Klostermann of the womens team as well as Miklos Konkoly and Dan Tripp. Klostermann was named an MVC Indoor Track Athlete of the Week after running the 800 meters in a league-best time of 2:10.66. She finished 12th at the NCAA Qualifying Meet in Ames, Iowa, on March 9.
Konkoly and Tripp each ran the same event at the same meet, the NCAA Qualifier, and finished 22nd and 23rd respectively. Tripp finished only one second behind Konkoly, who ran the race in a season and personal-best time of 1:51.92.
While there were no Redbirds who qualified for the 2003 NCAA Indoor Championships, the same meet where Christian Goy became the 2002 indoor mile champion, Forde knows there is much more his athletes are capable of and is excited about seeing that this weekend.
If we can go to Alabama and have good performances, I think we can be in for a better experience this spring, Forde said. Not that our indoor season was disappointing, but I dont know if the kids understand the magnitude of the Valley Championships yet. Hopefully, now that the indoor is behind us, they will know how to mentally prepare for the rest of the year.
The Alabama Relays began Thursday, with the womens heptathlon. Individual events begin Friday night with the running of the women and mens 10,000 meters and continue all day Saturday starting at 8 a.m. and concluding Sunday night with the mens 4x400m relay, set for a 5:10 p.m. start time.
