Relays Hype

Today would have been a horrible day for Fling, and an even worse day for the Penn Relays, which happen three weeks from now.

The men's and women's track teams hosted the Penn Invitational this afternoon, battling schools like Cornell, Army, Navy and the weather. The high today was in the low 40s, but by the day's end at around 4:30, it was around 30 degrees and violently blowing snow horizontally. Beautiful conditions for wearing running shorts and a 0.5-ounce tank-top-jersey (spandex if you're lucky).

Penn sprinter Grafton Ifill was probably thinking about the temperature in his native Bahamas, or finally remembering why he originally went to Clemson. One Cornell runner was overheard saying "I can't feel anything, it's so effing cold," and that was while it was still partly sunny.

However, if somehow it was this cold (or even close) at the Penn Relays, it could be an advantage for Penn. Not only is Penn a northern school, but unlike a Northwestern, we have no indoor track so all the training is outside.

"A lot of Southern schools can't run in the cold," said Quakers junior mid-distance runner Tim Kaijala, who beasted the competition in the 800-meters at 1:50.3. "A lot of people are just used to running inside and running when it's warm, but I'm used to running in the snow. We run outside all the time so we're kind of used to it, so it's kind of an advantage to us"