DENVER – The on-again, off-again indoor track and field season is back on again.
 
Metropolitan State University of Denver athletes will compete Sunday at the Chadron State College Open. It's the Roadrunners' first competition since kicking off the indoor season Dec. 6 and 7.
 
"It's kind of like that last meet," MSU Denver coach Janis Christopher said. "This first meet is looking to see where we're at after that six weeks of break, sort of assessing our situation. This meet will help us to plan the rest of the season: which races are we going to run, when are we going to run them, what are areas we need to address inside of our practices? It's mostly an assessment."
 
Christopher was pleased with the performance of a large contingent of sprinters at the Colorado School of Mines Alumni Classic & Multi meet last month. Now, as the season picks up speed – the Roadrunners compete for the next six weekends, including the Feb. 22 and 23 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championships – Christopher hopes it'll continue after the semester break.
 
"What I learned from the first meet was that we were actually probably a little ahead of where I thought we would be," Christopher said. "Our freshmen came in and competed at a little higher level than I had anticipated they would. Now you cross your fingers and hope it's carried over, that over the break they put in the work they needed to put in and that, at worst, we're only taking a sideways step and can climb from there.
 
"It takes a couple of weeks to get used to the intensity of practices again. They're handling the workouts pretty well."
 
Sunday's meet at the Nelson Center begins with field events at 10 a.m., preceding the 11 a.m. track events.
 
MSU Denver is bringing a larger contingent of distance runners and not as many sprinters as it had for the first meet. Christopher is hopeful of seeing the momentum built during the cross country season (where Trent Mack is the head coach, and Christopher is the assistant) carry over onto the track.
 
"I think it'll be fun to watch," she said. "Trent has seen great things out of Brittney (Kocman) in her practices and we'd like to see that translate to a race. Erica (Ruiz) and Alden (Gruidel) are both really excited to get on the track and race again. Sam Berg (Longmont, Colo./Mountain View (Meridian, Idaho)) and Jake Link are itching to get after it – it's been a while since they've competed and you can tell they are excited to get back out there. That's really what I'm looking for and excited to see – what are our distance runners going to continue to do and to see them carry the momentum they built in cross country.
 
"Right now it looks like that's exactly what's going to happen. That momentum is there and they are literally going to keep running with it."