M. Track heads up to 'warm' Ithaca

Ithaca, New York. Not the place you want to go in the middle of winter. After all, it's been cold enough in Philadelphia. The Penn men's indoor track team will make the trip up North this weekend. The Quakers will compete tomorrow at Cornell's Barton Hall. Joining Penn and the Big Red in the meet will be Fordham, Villanova and Albany. For coach Charlie Powell's squad, the weather has been more than an inconvenience -- it's been a major obstacle. The recent snow and ice storm has crippled the Quakers' ability to practice. "Except for some skill events, we have no place to train," Powell said. "We have no indoor track. Our outdoor track is iced over. We have no ability to train." The elements have even forced the team to adopt some less-than-conventional training tactics. "We've run around the Palestra," Powell said. "We've run in parking lots, in snow and ice." At any rate, Powell is satisfied with his team's progress. Regarding the Quakers' performance last week at Navy, in which Penn finished second to the Midshipmen by 36 points, Powell said, "It was a typical first meet. It went about as I expected." Powell added that he was happy that five Quakers performed well enough to qualify for the IC4As, but he knew that some members of the team would need more time to get into shape. "It's going to take time," Powell said. "They're getting back into the flow of racing, getting back into the flow of competition." The meet tomorrow will give the Quakers a chance to do that. The event is a non-scoring meet with individual winners, but no team competition. "The pressure's off a little," Powell said. "But they'll be going after it. They'll be able to really go after it without having to worry about scoring a point here or there." Junior co-captain Kelsey Armstrong thinks the team will show improvement this weekend. "It's going to be a progression from last week," Armstrong said. "I think we'll have better times and look sharper." Armstrong dismissed the idea that the problems created by the recent weather will affect the Quakers' performance. "It might make us a little more rusty in terms of getting used to the track," Armstrong said. "But I don't think it will have much of an effect on our times or performances."