This weekend, the ISU women’s track and field team will be splitting up and heading in different directions.

The majority of the team will be heading to Auburn, Ala., for the Tiger Track Classic while a smaller group of mid-distance and distance athletes will be heading to Palo Alto, Calif., for the Stanford Invitational.

As the Cyclones transfer from the indoor season to the outdoor season, certain tweaks between the two seasons may affect some of the athletes.

One difference that may have an effect is the climate change. With most of the early track season being run out west or down south, it’s a significant change-up from the typical Iowa cold.

“It’s a little bit challenging. Since its colder here, we don’t really get a chance to practice outdoors,” said sprinter Kendra White, who also said outdoor conditions can affect her breathing.

“I think it’s a big deal when it comes to breathing because indoors, you’re used to no wind and dry air, and outdoors can be any condition.”

However, White said the elements have a lesser effect as the season progresses and everybody adjusts to the subtle differences.

Another difficulty can be the travel. Few meets are held in the Midwest at the beginning of the outdoor season due to possible snowfall and cold temperatures, so the team must travel for competition.

However, the team looks at the traveling experiences as more of a positive than a negative.

“I think there are a lot of positives,” said distance runner Katy Moen. “We get to travel places we wouldn’t normally get to go to, it encourages team bonding, and we get to have a lot of fun.”

In addition to adjusting to the climate changes and traveling across the country, ISU assistant coach Andrea Grove-McDonough said racing on an outdoor track can cause some slight tweaks in strategy for the athletes.

“[On outdoor tracks], strategy can be pretty different,” Grove-McDonough said. “You actually have to be a lot more strategic in an event like the indoor 800 than the outdoor 800.”

Grove-McDonough also mentioned that outdoor tracks are larger and allow more room to recover from a mistake that may have been critical on an indoor track.

Even though it’s early in the outdoor season, the team isn’t interested in wasting any time on the adjustment period. Instead, the Cyclones are going all out this weekend in hopes of putting down some regional qualifying times early in the season.

“We would like to get those [regional qualifying times] out of the way. That would be nice,” Grove-McDonough said of this weekend’s goals. “It takes a lot of pressure off; we can kind of just have fun with the rest of the outdoor season.”