The women’s track and field team may be physically divided this weekend, but runners are still united in the goal of training hard to give the competition a run for its money in the upcoming meets.

This weekend, three women from the multi-events crew made the trek to Tucson, Ariz., to compete in the Jim Click Invitational, while everyone else stayed in Ames to prepare for next week.

“For the most part, it’s just their first outdoor meet, their first multi-event,” said assistant coach Travis Hartke.

The Jim Click Invitational is a highly regarded meet, where top teams in the county such as No. 1 Oregon, No. 3 USC and No. 4 Clemson will compete.

For the ISU women who did not make the journey west, the hot weather will have to wait. Athletes not competing will have their own personal activities to attend to.

“On Saturday, it’s supposed to simulate a meet day,” said short-distance hurdler Kianna Elahi.

Sprinters will work a “meet-like” day into their schedule this weekend, whereas long distance will be running basic workouts.

“For the distance kids, it’s just a normal practice,” Hartke said. “It’s just like any other week for us.”

Hartke said it is important for sprints to get more race-type simulation in, at least more so than it is for distance runners. Right now, the distance squad is just working on base mileage and intensity.

Practice will be structured to a “workout-to-recovery day” format in the week leading up to the Jim Duncan Invitational.

“Mondays and Thursdays are more of speed kind of days. We do more things like coming out of blocks,” Elahi said. “Wednesdays are more of our recovery days.”

In the outdoor season, meets start to become more specified toward certain parts of the team. The Jim Duncan Invitational will be specialized for Elahi and the sprinter squad in two weeks.

This week in practice, Elahi said she was going to work on the flow of her progression through the hurdles. She said this was one thing she noticed after her record-setting performance at Arizona State University Invitational last weekend.

“It was really exciting for me because I got through seven hurdles on my stride progression,” Elahi said. “I’m still trying to run fast, but be aware of the fact that I might be too close to the hurdles.”

Elahi said once she gets the flow of her progression down, the race will become smoother for her, and she will be able to knock off more seconds on her time.

“It’s about being smooth and fast and being able to hold that pace for as long as possible,” Elahi said.