For members of the men’s track and field team, the difference between the indoor and outdoor seasons is like night and day.

With 34 individual top-10 finishes Saturday at the season-opening Ithaca Invitational, it’s safe to say the Bombers have made the transition well. Head Coach Jim Nichols said the outdoor season, however, hinges on the elements.

“The hard part was, the first week back from break, we trained indoors at Cornell ’cause the weather was so bad,” he said.

Training indoors means everything from tighter turns to more stress on runners’ knees.

In Saturday’s meet, sophomore Michael Wodarski took first in the 110-meter hurdles and joined the 1,600-meter relay team for another first-place finish. Sophomore Cory Peterson won the javelin throw, as well. No team scores were kept.

Nichols added that the team won’t expect great performances until the training tapers off near the more important meets in late April and early May.

“It’s very exciting to start off your first meet that way, especially when you’ve been training really hard,” he said. “We’ve talked from day one that we were going to train through the first couple meets because of the uncertainty of the weather.”

With strong programs like SUNY–Cortland and SUNY–Geneseo participating, senior captain Josh Diorio said the meet was a chance to gauge the team’s potential.

“We were able to go up against [Cortland and Geneseo] pretty hard,” he said. “It definitely showed us that we have a lot of growing to do, but also that we’re at a good starting point.”

Because of the weather, the Bombers trained outdoors only for the past week. Conditions are “everything” when it comes to track and field, Nichols said. For instance, a runner may have an extra boost from a tailwind or added resistance from a headwind.

“Indoors you don’t fight the elements,” Nichols said. “Outdoors you have the wind, so you’re either running into a headwind or you have a tailwind or a crosswind.”

Nichols added that that transition from indoors to outdoors was more difficult for certain events.

“Say for a pole vaulter coming down the runaway, if there’s a breeze coming, that’s going to affect how you plant a 15-foot pole because you have to get off the ground,” Nichols said.

Sophomore Andrew Brown, who finished third in the pole vault, said events like his are especially complicated during the outdoor season.

“The higher you go, the more wind comes into play,” he said.  “The wind can become a killer on your run.”

Nichols noted an improvement over training in an indoor gym.

“We call it the indoor hack,” he said. “When people do a hard workout and they kind of burn their lungs with the dry air. They start getting coughs indoors because their airways are a little irritated.”

Nichols said his team needs to work on conditioning in preparation for the New York state meet May 4.

With such a short spring season, Nichols said the Bombers will train hard through the next few meets and then tone it down for the more important meets.

“Basically after this weekend, we have about four weeks before the conference championships, so it’s going to happen real quick,” he said.

The Bombers head to the Hamilton Open in Clinton, N.Y., this weekend and then travel to the New Jersey Invitational on April 14 in Ewing, N.J. Diorio said the team cannot afford to lose concentration on the postseason.

“I agree that you wanted to run, throw and jump relaxed, but if you stay too relaxed, we might lose sight of what we want to do at states,” Diorio said.

Last season, the Bombers finished eighth at states. Cortland finished first, followed by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.