After months of intense conditioning and with a record-laden spring season still fresh in their minds, selected members of the Penn men's track team will travel to Princeton on Saturday to compete in the Princeton Holiday Classic.
As the first meet of the season, the team will especially focus on gauging its progress from its fall conditioning program.
"We are just trying to find out where we stand," Penn coach Charlie Powell said. "We are trying to find out the competitiveness of our people, where we are with fall conditioning and maybe learn some more about some of the youngsters."
Powell has made the Quakers a force to be reckoned with since becoming the head coach 15 years ago. Under his guidance, the Red and Blue squad has produced over 100 individual gold medalists and 20 Heptagonal relay championship teams.
Powell's "youngsters" join a team with a history of not just winning, but breaking records.
This year's co-captains include senior Brian Abram, a six-time Heptagonal champion who was an All-East selection in sprints the past two years, senior Sam Burley, who at one point had the third-fastest 800-meter time in the world last year and junior Brian Chaput, the reigning IC4A and Heptagonal champion in the javelin.
"Last year's winter went fairly well," Powell said. "We will definitely challenge in most of the events this weekend."
Abram has been pleased with this season's conditioning up to this point.
"In the four years that I have been here, this year's fall conditioning was the best that I have seen," Abram said. "We are responding well to distance work, and it has helped us a lot more this year than it has in previous years."
While the spring meets are the culmination of the track team's year, these introductory meets are especially helpful for the underclassmen to gain valuable competition time.
"This will be a good starting meet, especially for the new guys," Abram said. "It's a good way for them to figure out what college track is all about since this is a whole new experience for a lot of them."
However, Powell said the team will not send as many distance runners to Princeton because of its challenging and successful fall season.
Will this be another record-breaking season for the men's track team?
"Right now it's very, very early," Powell said. "We will play it as it comes."
"Definitely spring is what everyone looks forward to," Abram said. "Right now, we're going to fine tune our skills and get some good experience in meets."
