For the ISU men’s and women’s teams, the trip means a little more.

Both Cyclone squads are still smarting after poor showings last month at the Roy Griak Invitational. Neither team fared well — Dan Taylor was the only Cyclone runner, man or woman, who placed inside the top 100 — and the teams are looking for redemption.

“This is a good opportunity to go down and see the course, but more importantly, it gives us the chance to redeem ourselves from the Griak meet and to run against the top caliber teams,” said men’s coach Corey Ihmels. “[Hopefully we can] get ourselves centered and gain some momentum for the Big 12 in two weeks.

“Not that we are looking ahead to conference through this meet, but it [placing well at conference] is our long term goal right now. [The Pre-Meet] gives us a chance to stay in Iowa, we don’t have to travel far and we have some good competition.”

The Pre-Meet is an important event in any team’s attempt to qualify for the national meet, which will be held in Cedar Falls on Nov. 24.

Along with the top two teams from each of the regional meets, at-large bids are given to teams with strong performances throughout the year, and the Pre-Meet is one performance given great consideration.

“This is going to give us a great barometer of where we are at right now,” Ihmels said. “We just finished our two heaviest weeks of workload, and we’re starting to back down from that.

“We’re starting to turn a corner and get to a point where we’re feeling more rested and more ready to go. It’s really important that we run well this weekend.”

More than 70 teams will be racing, enough teams that both the men and women’s fields will be split into two races.

The course is also a change of pace from others the Cyclone runners have faced.

“It’s a fast course, and the weather is supposed to be good so it will run fast,” women’s coach Dick Lee said. “There are no significant hills, so it’s a good fair course in that there isn’t anything tricky about it.”

With a young team making the trip, the lack of hills serves to the Cyclones’ advantage.

“It [the lack of hills] will help some of the young kids,” Lee said. “It helps the younger kids with the longer race because they are used to racing 4,000 meters in high school. Jumping up the race distance by 15 percent and taking out the hills reduces the stress of it a little bit.”

Some runners will miss the hills though, Lee said.

“We have some girls who like racing hills and feel like they are missing out on something when they don’t [have to tackle hills],” he said. “They feel like it’s an advantage to them.”

Another common thread running through both ISU teams is the need for consistency throughout the lineup.

“We’re up and down from week to week,” Lee said. “We’ve had a little roller coaster with everybody. Krysta Metz has been running well and other kids have been up and down.

“Amanda Ganser and Meredith have each had a couple good, solid races and a couple where they have struggled. Hopefully we can have five or six kids have a good, solid race this weekend.”

Ihmels agreed.

“Dan Taylor has done it for us all year and it’ll be no different this weekend; he’s going to have a good race,” he said. “Ryan Pence is really starting to come around and he’s going to step it up this weekend. After that, we’re looking for a couple guys to help step it up.”