Women's team to participate in nation's oldest meet

Very rarely does a track and field meet make the pages of Sports Illustrated on Campus, but that is exactly what happened in the April 20 issue.\nAfter a week off from competition, IU will participate in one of the most widely known track and field meets in the country -- the Penn Relays. \nThe 2005 Penn Relays will be the 111th running of the event and will feature 241 colleges and 924 high school teams in downtown Philadelphia. \n"There will be more people at the relays than there have been at our football stadium in 10 years -- it's a great atmosphere for our kids," said IU coach Randy Heisler. "Unless you're an Olympian, you probably don't get a chance to run in front of that many people."\nUnlike most track and field meets, the relay event will be the main focus. At Penn, the Hoosiers will run relays that they do not run anywhere else such as shuttle relays and hurdle relays. \nThe meet will not feature many individual events, and in those certain events, the field of competitors will be very limited because the Penn Relays is such a large meet with teams from all over the country. \n"We're just going to focus and try to stay competitive with the other teams," Heisler said.\nUnfortunately because of the Penn Relays set-up, the Hoosiers will not have the opportunity to qualify any individual athletes to NCAA Regionals. \nThe Penn Relays begin today in Philadelphia, continue Friday and conclude Saturday.