This Friday and Saturday the Manchester track team will be competing in their Conference championship. The HCAC meet is scheduled to take place at 10 a.m. at Anderson University.

  
First year AJ Herbel, who will be competing in the 1500 meter run this weekend, explains the goals of his team: “We’re going to fight hard for second,” Herbel said. “It’d be really great if that happened.”

  
Fellow first-year teammate Jesse Steffen will also be competing this weekend, though not on the track itself. “I throw heavy stuff,” explained Steffen, who regularly participates in the field events of shot put, discus, hammer throw and javelin. “My goal is to score in all of my events. That’d be cool.”

  
Since this weekend is so important, careful preparation is being done during practice. The runners are “tapering,” which is the process of decreasing weekly miles in order be physically ready for the extra work ahead. They’re all doing their best to continue eating and drinking in a manner that will properly fuel them to compete. “The coaches have to trust us to do it ourselves,” said Herbel, sitting in the Union with some of his teammates. “We usually do pretty well.”

  
Other teammates will be busy this weekend, too. “I’m running the 10k on Friday and throwing javelin on Saturday,” said first-year Madi Gregory. “I haven’t actually competed in running events this season because of a nagging shin injury, so I’m really nervous about competing with only a week of running to prepare myself.”

Gregory hopes that her large amount of cross-training (non-running exercises that keep injured athletes ready for competition) pays off. “Whether or not I do well will really come down to my ability to stay positive mentally… 25 laps around the track is a long time to ‘keep the bad out,’” Gregory explained.

  
Ashley Vance, another first-year, will not be able to compete this weekend due to illness. “It’s kind of disappointing since I’ve been working all year and I don’t get to run the last meet,” Vance said. “It’s still been a good year though; I worked hard and PR’ed [earned a personal record].”

  
Additional competitors this weekend include Megan Miller, “the only first-year in the top five of the conference,” according to Gregory, who is excited to watch Miller perform in the 1500 meter run.

“I’m also really excited to see what Brandon Dyben can do because it’s his last year and he has been such a great mentor for me this season,” Gregory said. Brandon Dyben, a record-breaking hammer thrower, will join teammate Jesse Steffen off the track, throwing “heavy stuff.”

  
Live coverage of the meet is available on the Anderson College website, accessible from the MC Athletics track/field website page.

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