Cold and wind hinder ’Dogs

Truman's men and women's track teams encountered a familiar adversary from Kirksville last weekend at the Jim Duncan Invitational in Des Moines, Iowa — Mother Nature. Rain, wind and cold temperatures assailed the Bulldogs throughout the two-day event.

Head coach John Cochrane said the conditions were some of the worst five days he's seen in his 40-plus years of coaching.

 "It was cold, it was windy, it rained and on top of that it didn't snow, which it did in Northern Iowa. It affected everybody's performance," Cochrane said.

The subpar weather was not enough to stop junior Jennifer Zweifel, who continued her dominance in the long jump and triple jump by winning both events at the meet with respective leaps of 17-11.75 and 39-04.50. Senior Shaina Dochterman took home first in the 400-meter hurdles, and sophomore Lisa Kucharski finished right behind her to give the Bulldogs a one-two finish in the event. Truman  had two other second-place finishes in the meet, as sophomores Rachel McCarroll and Karen Grauel were good enough for silver in the discus and 10,000 meters, respectively.

On the men's side, sophomore Joey Walls took home fifth in the 1,500- meter run for the men's best finish on the day. Other top finishers for the men were sophomore Matt Smith in the shot put, senior John Venner in the steeplechase and senior Demetrius Lavant in the long jump, all of whom took sixth.

"I was not very happy with my race," Walls said. "I took off my sweats right before the race and just started shivering uncontrollably. I got up to the line and was like, ‘This is not going to be pretty.' I got kind of impatient because the race went out slow and I was stuck at the back of the pack. So I had to go all the way out and around, and I didn't have a kick and fell off. I guess the time wasn't all that awful, but I still think I could have done better."

Cochrane said that while the weather hampered performances, several athletes managed to compete well.

"The competition was good," he said. "We got a chance to run against decent people, which always helps. The Grauel sisters ran really well for us in the 10,000. [Junior] Michelle Gronemeyer ran the best time she's run in two years in the woman's 5,000. A couple of younger guys ran really well for us in the men's 5,000. [Freshman Andrew Sheets] set a personal record. Joey ran well, not as well as he's run, but a good competitive race."

"The other thing is that even though it's a couple of weeks away, sometimes you get really bad weather at your conference meet, and you have to learn to suck it up and go compete."

With the Dewey Allgood Invitational in Rolla, Mo. this weekend, the Bulldogs enter the home stretch of their season with only three weeks remaining until the conference meet. The impending finish is something that, is never far from anyone's mind, Dochterman said.

"You're always working up to [conference]," she said. "We're just trying to maintain what we got and hopefully get better as we go on."

Walls expressed his half-joking, half-serious desire for the end of the track season.

"I'd like to have one weekend with favorable conditions," he said. "Last weekend it was ridiculously hot, this weekend it was ridiculously cold. But you gotta run with the weather you are given. You can't really choose that."    

Although the end of the season is near, Cochrane is quick to point out that nothing is finished.

 "Some people have opportunities to do pretty well, it's just what they do between now and then," Cochrane said. "Sometimes you can sit down at the end of the year and look at where you were right now in the middle of April and where you ended up, and they don't resemble each other at all."

For Dochterman, these last few weeks hold special importance as the finale of her career as a Truman athlete, a career she hopes to finish in top form.

"I always have that in the back of my head that this is the last time you're going to be at this meet, so you have to compete as best you can, because you won't be able to go there again and redo it," she said.