By Jacob Miller
For the first time this indoor season, the Iowa track and field team will pack its bags and travel to a different venue to compete.
The Hawkeyes will head to South Bend, Indiana, for the Meyo Classic, a two-day event. Iowa will compete against some tough opponents and adjust to a slightly different training schedule.
“We love competing at home, and it’s been a great season up to this point, but you just got to get on the road to get the kids accustomed to staying at a hotel and not just walking out of their dorm room to come over for a track meet,” said Joey Woody, the Hawkeye director of track and field. “It’s mainly the freshmen who haven’t competed away from campus yet, [so] getting them accustomed to how we do things.”
The track and field team comprises a relatively young group, and for many of the athletes, this will be their first time competing away from home in their college careers. Luckily for the Hawkeyes, they have many leaders on the team who will guide the freshmen, among them senior Aaron Mallett.
“Even Aaron Mallett, he’s not hurdling this weekend, but he’s going to do some other events and just having him along is really big for our young hurdlers and our sprinters,” Woody said. “To be able to have him to mentor them and some of our other veterans to be able to help the young kids get used to what it’s like to compete away from home.”
He relates to the underclassmen, having been in their shoes before, and wants them to relax and treat it as any other meet.
“I really just try to be relatable,” Mallett said. “This week of practice has been phenomenal. We came off a really good weekend last week as a team. I think people are really excited to go somewhere else, into a different venue, against different teams, and really showcase what we have.”
Even though Mallett will not compete in his staple event, the 60-meter hurdles, he is still an important part of the sprints team for Iowa and has a leadership role.
Another leader is junior Heaven Chandler. She knows there will be a greater workload at the beginning of the week and is eager to see how the team handles traveling for the first time this season.
“We just have to load up a little bit more early in the week because we leave on Thursday, so we just go in knowing we have to do a little bit more extra work and then get ready to travel, make sure our bodies are good,” she said. “I’m excited to see how we do with traveling.”
This is also the first time this season that the Hawkeyes will compete on an oversized indoor track. For the first few meets of the season, all the Hawkeyes competed on was their new banked track. This will offer them a new challenge and opportunity to display their talents.