This Friday and Saturday, the University of Chicago men’s and women’s track and field teams will head west to Benedictine University to compete at the Benedictine Relays. The Maroons will look to continue their impressive start to the outdoor season and are hoping for warm weather along the way.

Now two weeks into competition, the Maroons have excelled thus far in their transition from the indoor season to the outdoor season. Both the men’s team and the women’s team have had strong performances so far, with the men taking home a second-place finish at Augustana and the women taking home a fifth-place finish. 

Second-year Claire Brockway reflected on the previous performances, saying, “I think that we have a really strong momentum for this season after a strong performance at indoor conference, where our women’s team took home the title, and after nationals, where we had several All-American performances. I think weather has been our biggest limiting factor at this point in the season and has prevented us from practicing outdoors. Given that, we had an indoor mock meet last weekend where we were able to get the team together to cheer on each other towards season best performances. Overall, I think going into this weekend, we are in a solid position to start putting forth some season bests as outdoor conference creeps up. I think there is a lot of pressure to start putting up times and marks that could score at conference and that’s getting people motivated for this weekend.” 

Fourth-year Olivia Cattau echoed Brockway regarding the tough conditions, saying, “The past two weeks we have been battling the weather, so we practiced a lot indoors which is not ideal, but at least we got solid workouts under our belt that will be the foundation for the rest of the outdoor season.” The cold weather of the past two weeks has derailed some of the Maroons’ plans, as Cattau added that last week the team “didn’t compete due to weather.” 

While the elements have been an uphill battle so far, the competition this weekend will be a good opportunity to gauge where the team is at. Looking forward to the relays, Cattau said, “This is the first meet we have the whole team together so we are just looking to lay down some good times and continue prep for UAA in two weeks.”

The Maroons take on the competition, and the weather, this Friday starting at 12 p.m. at Benedictine University.