The men's track and field team will open its outdoor season this weekend in a tri-meet against Navy and Syracuse in Annapolis, Md.

Coach Harry Groves said Navy is probably the toughest team in the country to compete against in a dual meet because its team is so large. He added that Syracuse has some top athletes, but not a lot of depth.

Groves said the Lions are prepared as well as they can be, but the weather has hampered, to some extent, the progress of the team's practices. Groves said the weather has not been nice enough to get everything done.

Putting up with bad weather is one reason pole vaulter Mark Algeri likes competing indoors better than outdoors.

"This weekend I'm worried about the weather," Algeri said. "Your mind is on the weather instead of getting the job done."

Algeri said there is not much difference between practicing for indoor pole vaulting as for outdoor.

"Everything's taken up right where indoor left off," he said.

Algeri added that the indoor season prepares athletes for the outdoor season and that he is better prepared for competition now than he was at the beginning of the indoor season.

Tri-captain and decathlete Barry Walsh said athletes usually perform better outdoors. "It's just a better attitude outdoors," he said.

Walsh will not compete this weekend due to a recurring back injury. He said he hopes to be competing in time for the Penn Relays.

Distance runner Aidan O'Reilly said the team as a whole is where it should be in terms of being ready to compete this early in the season.

He said the runners may not be very sharp, but that is because the training right now is based on a lot of distance work and strength training. He added that when the workouts are more speed-oriented and the strength training dies down, runners get faster and sharper.