As the distance runners on the ISU men’s track team head to the Stanford Invitational this weekend in Palo Alto, Calif., one runner is also traveling home.

Brandon Rooney, a native of Tehachapi, Calif., will start his outdoor season by competing in the 1,500-meter run in front of his family. To make matters more interesting for Rooney, his mom is turning 50 on Saturday.

“You always want to run well for your family,” Rooney said. “I’m trying not to focus on it too much; I just want to stay relaxed and let it happen.”

Rooney said his goal for the weekend is to hit the NCAA regional qualifying time of 3 minutes, 47.8 seconds.

Another runner looking to qualify for Regionals is Jayden Russ, who will run the 3,000 steeplechase. In a steeplechase, the runners combine a distance race with hurdles placed around the track – something Russ feels prepared for, despite not having a chance to practice for the event during the indoor season.

“The most important thing, still, is the running,” Russ said. “I’ve started doing some hurdle work in the last two weeks, but I’ve mainly been working on my running.”

The qualifying time of 9:07 is in reach, Russ said.

“I think running outdoors will be a little nicer. I think I’ll be a bit more confident running this event,” Russ said. “I’ve run under the time plenty of times before, so I think I can get it done again.”

Elsewhere, Guor Majak will run the 1,000, Kevin Born will run the 5,000 and Kiel Uhl will also run the 5,000 after not competing in the indoor season. Uhl missed the indoor season because of injury after finishing 121st at the NCAA championships in the fall.

“It’ll be his first competitive effort in a while. He may not finish, we’re just going to play it by ear and see how it goes,” assistant coach Corey Ihmels said. “He’s been training pretty well, but he hasn’t been training that long.”

The rest of the team will go to the Missouri Relays on Friday and Saturday. Eric Parker will run the 400 hurdles, and believes a regional qualifying time of 52.51 to be within reach after running 53.28 last weekend. Parker is also part of the shuttle hurdle relay team that won last weekend.

The former 4×400 relay team of Tony Stanfield, Jared Lewis, Elijah Braimah and Jared Graham will split up in order to run individually, as they will run the 400 dash, with Lewis running the 200 dash. The team qualified for NCAA Regionals last week, and they now look to qualifying individually.

“We got the relays out of the way last weekend, and we can more now concentrate on our individual races, trying to get qualified in the 400 and 200,” Stanfield said.

Kellen Burl will also look to improve upon his regional qualifying time in the 110 hurdles.