Track and Field to open 2012-13 season

The IU men’s and women’s track and field teams kick off their seasons this weekend as they prepare to host the Hoosier Open. The Hoosiers will welcome a competitive field to Gladstein Fieldhouse, with the men’s 5000-meter race on Friday and men’s and women’s pentathlons on Saturday highlighting the meet.

Senior Zach Mayhew, who is coming off a successful cross country season in which he won the individual Big Ten Championship, will represent IU in the 5K.

“I’m just really hoping that the fitness from cross country carries over well,” Mayhew said. “It’s only been a few weeks since the last race so I think I’m just going to get in there and try to hang with the group.”

Since he wrapped up his Hoosier cross country career at the 2012 NCAA Cross Country Championships only three weeks ago, Mayhew said IU Coach Ron Helmer has been helping him adjust for shorter races. The extra training will come in handy as the NCAA changed how runners qualify for postseason competition.

While in the past competitors were tasked to qualify by achieving a certain time, this year the rules have been changed to simply take the top 16 best times.

“It does change the strategy a little bit because I guess you have to wait for the end of the year to see if you qualified,” Mayhew said. “But Coach Helmer usually tries to get us to run fast no matter what time of year it is.”

Helmer has set up the 5K to be the feature event on Friday. Six of the eight entrants in that race have run 13:53 or faster at some point in their career, just a couple ticks off last year’s national qualifying time of 13:50.

“In the 5K, these are kids all coming in here to run competitively,” Helmer said. “That’s gonna be a high level race where there is a fairly distinct sense of purpose, so there will be a different level of intensity there.”

Another Hoosier competitor to watch out for is 2012 Olympics High Jump Bronze Medalist Derek Drouin, who will compete in the 60-meter hurdles on Friday and the pentathlon on Saturday.

“Any time Derek Drouin does something on the track it will be really cool,” Helmer said. “But also our male and female pole-vaulters and some of our young sprinters are really talented. There’s going to be a lot of races and it should be really fun to watch.”

Helmer said he thinks of this meet as a way to get his athletes out on the track in a competitive situation and let them perform. As the members of last year’s recruiting class prepare for their first intercollegiate meet, Helmer said it will be important to evaluate his new athletes early.

“Because we have so many new people, we’re not sure how everyone’s going to transfer their fitness to the competitive track,” Helmer said. “Some are going to handle it really well. It’ll give us some talking points that we can go to as we start to better prepare for what’s to come.”