The men’s and women’s track teams are preparing for their first meet of 2009 this Saturday at the Tar Heel Invitational in Chapel Hill. Many athletes did not participate in the CNU Holiday Open, the first scheduled meet of the season back in December, so the team’s trip to Chapel Hill will be the first meet for the majority of the participants.

One athlete that had success and found the December meet to be a useful start to the season was senior Mattie Bethea, who finished 4th in the high jump with a leap of 5í06.00î She commented on the value of an early competition afterwards, saying the meet was “kind of like my warm-up.”

The athletes that did not travel to Virginia in December face an interesting challenge this week since many have been practicing for only one week.  With practice for the spring season just beginning, success or failure this weekend will likely depend on the amount of time and effort put forth throughout the offseason.

Junior thrower Jason Jones said the meet will show the coaches who put in time in the offseason and who did not.  He predicted that the meet would allow “[spectators] to find out who was slack over summer and fall.”

Jones described the difficulty of competing after preparing for such a short period of time, but also said the meet promises to be beneficial because of the relatively low-stress nature of a January track meet.

“It is tough, especially coming off Christmas break,î Jones said. “[But] it’s good to have a meet like this because you donít have all that pressure right at the start.”

Coach Rollie Geiger discussed both the difficulty and importance of a competition this early in the season when the majority of the athletes have had such a short time period to prepare themselves.

“It will be a challenge, but we needed to get the season started in preparation for the ACC championships in February,” Geiger said.  “We have not been here for almost a month, itís a long year, we will be competing into June, and this is just a starting point.”

Another benefit to the start of this track season, and to the beginnings of all athletic seasons, is the opportunity to get the first glimpse at promising freshman competing in their first collegiate meet.  Bethea said watching freshmen run for their first time was a pleasure.

“It is exciting to see what level they will be performing at,” she said.