A track meet in December?

That’s correct. The track and field teams will host the ISU Holiday Classic at the Lied Recreation Center on Friday.

The action will begin at 2 p.m. with field events, followed by running events slated to begin at 4 p.m.

The Cyclones will face about 10 schools, including Drake, Colorado State and Kansas City Community College.

“There will be some small representations from some very good Division II and Division III schools such as Truman State, Winona State and a couple of Iowa schools such as Simpson and Buena Vista,” said men’s head coach Steve Lynn.

Lynn said many of his veteran runners won’t be competing, while others, such as former Cyclone and current volunteer assistant coach Lamont Johnson, will be running unattached.

“The main idea [of this meet is] for guys to test themselves a little bit at the end of the fall training session,” Lynn said. “It’s kind of like a spring game in football, except it’s against other people.”

A big thing, Lynn said, is to see how his veteran athletes and his newcomers perform.

All of the freshmen, along with sprinter Jared Graham and long jumper Tony Douglas, will be running unattached, he said.

One of the toughest events is the 60-meter dash, Lynn said.

“There’s a kid who won [the 60-meter dash] last year from Kansas City Community College and Colorado State has a good kid coming in,” Lynn said.

Women’s head coach Dick Lee said he told his runners that the meet will serve as a “dress rehearsal” for their regular season that starts in January.

The meet will be good practice mainly for the sprinters up to the 800-meter runners, and for field events, Lee said.

The only runner from the cross country team who will be competing in Friday’s meet is Jenny Mockler, who normally competes in the 800-meter event.

Lee said his three top performers for this season are middle-distance runner Ada Anderson, triple jump specialist Agata Kosuda, and hurdler Rebecca Williams.

Anderson will compete in the 500-meter run and the 4×300-meter relay. Williams will also compete in the 4×300-meter relay, as well as the 100-meter hurdles. Kosuda will not compete.

Lee said he is interested to see how his newcomers perform, because it is their first shot at collegiate competition.

“We’ll see who stays relaxed and competes this weekend,” he said.

Lee said that after the meet, the athletes will go backwards from where they currently are because of the three weeks they have off between semesters.

“We’ll take some steps back in training and rebuild when we get back,” he said.