Michael Higgins
Published: March 25, 2009

Atlanta/Orlando - The Loras track and field team made its way down to Orlando, Florida this spring break. The team was able to bond and train under beautiful weather.

“The team, over this week-long trip, really becomes a lot closer and we start meshing more and more as a team,” says jumps and hurdles coach, Geoff Kaiser, “In regards to the training as well, we can do a week’s worth of hard training in good weather and really get ourselves ready for the outdoor season. That puts us at a big advantage to a lot of the other Iowa Conference schools.”

The team’s trip, which involved a track meet at Emory University, was a great overall experience for each individual athlete.

Junior distance runner, Dan Murphy commented, “The training facilities were great, we got to run on the same track as professionals and see what they do every day. The weather was perfect, we couldn’t ask for much more.”

“It’s really a great treat coming off such a cold winter to be able to come down for a whole week and be able to run in 80-degree weather with palm trees around us and to be able to finish off this meet in this type of weather. This is perfect racing conditions and there’s great competition,” said sophomore distance runner, Dain Leytem.

One outstanding performer at the Emory Invite was sophomore, Tara Kilburg, who ran a winning time of four minutes and thirty-nine seconds in the 1500 meter race.

Kilburg stated, “I was really happy with it for my first race. It was a personal record and I almost provisionally qualified for nationals. Just those two things give me a lot of confidence going into the outdoor season.”

Now that the Duhawks are back in Dubuque they will be hosting the Alumni meet this Saturday at the Rock Bowl.

Michael Higgins can be reached at Michael.Higgins@loras.edu