At the end of the indoor season, the ISU women’s track and field team was ranked 14th in the nation. After a promising finish at nationals, athletes and coaches are even more confident in preparation for the outdoors.

The Cyclones will have their first outdoor invitational in Arizona at the ASU Invitational this weekend. With that in mind, coaches have a quick turnaround to get athletes prepared for the outdoor season.

“The key for every group is consistency,” said assistant coach Travis Hartke. “If you can stay consistent over your four or five years here, you’re going to get a lot better.”

Coaches said practice stays the same, for the most part, in comparison between indoors and outdoors.

“The multi-[events] change on a daily basis, but it’s about staying consistent in practice,” Hartke said.

One idea that Hartke and coach Corey Ihmels agreed on was that the team was better at outdoor competition than indoor.

“It’s our philosophical approach about how we train our athletes,” Ihmels said. “A lot of stuff we do in the cross-country season is base [workout] for the outdoor season.”

Ihmels said his team is eager to get outdoors, but is also focused on training so they can peak at the right time.

“It’s easy to get excited about outdoors and we had some success indoors this year,” Ihmels said. “But everybody’s forgotten about that; everybody’s looking at outdoors now and we’ll be a really ready program.”

Athletes and coaches have discussed briefly before heading into outdoor competition some broad outdoor goals they have in store for the season.

“Basically, we’re getting back into our mileage,” said Ejiro Okoro. “And we’re just getting back into our rituals — running hard, training hard.”

Comparatively, the women’s team doesn’t have as much to improve upon as the men do.

“On the women’s side, we just have to keep doing what we’re doing, and on the men’s side we’ve got a little work,” Ihmels said. “As a whole, we’re a better outdoor team than indoors.”

Ihmels even mentioned long-term national goals for the team.

“And even beyond that, you’ve got to look at your top, upper kids and make sure they’re ready to do what they want to do at the right time of the year,” Ihmels said.

This weekend, the ASU Invite is where both men’s and women’s teams will have their first crack at the outdoor competition.