Men will race in IC4As, women in ECACs this weekend

While many may not consider Princeton's unpredictable weather to be ideal for outdoor activities, it turns out that the New Jersey spring weather is surprisingly perfect for track.

The track team took advantage of it to host one of the most important track meets of the season last weekend — the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships. In addition to the league championships, however, the Weaver Track & Field Stadium will host two of the most competitive meets of the year, the Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes in America (IC4A) Championships for the men and the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Championships for the women's team.

Compared to Heps this past weekend, the IC4A and ECAC championship meets are much more competitive on the individual level.

"Our team views ECACs as quite different from Heps. We don't think about times or heights or distances as much as we think about place, being competitive and beating the next girl. We're really running for the team," senior co-captain Catha Mullen said. "We use ECACs as a tuneup for the upcoming meets; girls compete either to qualify for NCAA Regionals — it's the last chance to do so — or to get a good race in before Regionals."

Since this meet is the last opportunity to qualify for NCAA Regionals, it's fortunate for the Tigers that they will face a myriad of strong competitors from Georgetown, Villanova, Duke and William & Mary in addition to the usual Ivy fare. The increased competition and speed at the IC4A and ECAC championships can provide the extra boost for the Princeton athletes to achieve qualifying marks.

"There will be far more schools at the meet this weekend than there were at Heps," senior Mia Swenson said. "At least for the distance events, the times will in general be faster at ECACs than they were at Heps because people will be chasing times, rather than trying to run a more tactical race."

The Tigers, however, are not simply competing individually to achieve qualifying marks. Unlike Heps, where each Ivy League school is granted 36 spots, the ECAC and IC4A championship meets require athletes to qualify by time, distance or height. Both associations set qualification standards that the athletes must achieve during either the indoor or outdoor track seasons. As a result, there is no preset cap on how many athletes an individual team may bring.

With the number of strong performances last weekend, this weekend should prove to be even faster. The momentum carried over from last weekend's intense meet should help the athletes attain personal records.

"Our girls who have qualified are really excited to compete this weekend. It's great competing at our home track, as we saw last weekend," Mullen said. "Coming off such a great performance as a team should give us confidence going into the meet this weekend. But we're not out to win the meet as a team, but rather to have some good individual performances."

The men's IC4A meet begins this Friday and runs through the weekend; the women's championship meet begins Saturday.