By Bill Lawson
Head Coach
We are excited to have everyone back. Practice got underway on Tuesday with the bulk of the back.
It is always concerning to see the fitness level after a break like this because when they left they were in really good shape.
We will use the Doug Raymond Invitational this weekend at the Kent State Field House as kind of a tune up for next weekend. One week from Friday on Jan. 17 at 6 p.m. we will host the Akron Dual at the Field House. Really in my mind that is what kicks off indoor season, even though we’ll have two meets in preparation.
We’ll take a look at some of our higher level individuals, and if they are not completely for this weekend we will train through the weekend so that we don’t lose a training day, and we’ll get them ready for the Akron Duals. That will get some of the younger kids going.
It is exciting to get to see where we are as a team. Truthfully, by the time we get to the Mayo Invitational at Notre Dame on Feb. 7, that will really be the indicator of where the strength of our team is.
The difficulty over the last few weeks is the training environments our kids had. Some of our local kids were able to come back and work out on their own at the Field House. We had a number of kids who live near Youngstown working over at the Youngstown facility. But with the cold weather we’ve had, some of our distance kids have had to put on a lot of warm clothes and just go out. That’s been tough. That’s where some of the west coast and southern kids have an advantage, but they have it in all sports.
We make the best of it. We are lucky to have a great indoor facility to train in. Hopefully when we get an indicator of where we are this weekend we won’t have fallen off too far from where we were when we ran the Golden Flash Gala back in December. I think we will be right back where we are, and then things are always hyped up a little bit with the Akron Dual.
I am excited to see some of our middle distance and distance kids get going this weekend because they had limited action at the Golden Flash Gala. Those are the ones, you can really count on training over the holiday. The 800, the miler and two miler, I’m looking forward to seeing where they will be, not just this weekend, but even more next weekend at the Akron Dual.
We are excited to get the season going, and we are excited about hosting the MAC Championships here on Feb. 28. That’s not very far off.
