Team travels to Stanford and Florida

The change in seasons on the calender marks the change in venues for the IU women's track and field team as it opens up its 2004 outdoor season this weekend with athletes traveling to California and Florida.\nIU coach Randy Heisler said the distance runners are traveling to the Stanford Invitational because of the cooler weather. The jumpers, sprinters and throwers are traveling to the Florida Relays because the warmer climate favors their performance in their respective events.\n"To get everything in (at the Florida Relays), some of the longer races they run at night, but a lot of the 1500s and (distance events), they run them at 3, 4 in the afternoon," Heisler said. "It could be 90 degrees. We're not acclimated for that ... the competition at the Florida relays in the distance events is typically not that good."\nIn last season's Stanford Invitational, IU sophomore Jessica Gall ran 16:49.53 seconds in the 5,000-meter run and junior Julie Shields ran 17:07.87, as Gall and Shields finished second and eighth, respectively in the "Section B" race. At the 2003 Florida Invitational, in her first week of outdoor competition, IU senior Lauren Chesnut reached the NCAA provisional qualifying mark in the triple-jump, jumping 12.56-meters.\n"The meet at Stanford has turned into a really competitive (meet)," Heisler said. "Something like 90 percent of all the athletes who qualified for the NCAA regionals last year, either did it at this meet at Stanford, in a meet at Mt. Sac, Calif. or at the Penn Relays."\nChesnut, a native of Elk Grove, Calif., said she is looking forward to starting the season off right in the warm Florida climate.\n"Its always nice to get a good jump in the beginning (of the season)," Chesnut said. "It gives you a little bit of confidence going into the rest of the season. You are not worrying about jumping far the whole time, and you can just train and focus on detail."\nTwo weeks ago in the NCAA National Championship meet, IU junior sprinter Ara Towns ran 7.39 seconds for a 12th place finish in the 60-meter dash. Towns said she was pleased with her time in the 60-dash as it was consistent with her time in the Big Ten Indoor Championship (7.34-seconds). This weekend's meet marks a new beginning.\n"It's the beginning, so it's starting all over in a whole different type of race," Towns said. "I'm just going to try to put more into it -- more whatever I can and approach it just like any other time."\n-- Contact staff writer Steve Slivka at smslivka@indiana.edu.