Men are from Mars, women are from Venus.
This famous relationship cliche describes Friday's Eastern Michigan Invitational quite nicely for the Michigan men's and women's track teams.
First of all, the meet was held on St. Valentine's Day.
Second of all, considering the lack of many top Wolverines at the meet, a lot of the men and women could very well have been on vacation at their respective planets of origin.
Both the men's and women's teams will participate in the Big Ten championships next weekend, which, besides NCAAs, is the most important meet of Michigan's indoor season.
Many Wolverines did not want to sacrifice their performances at Big Tens for the unscored Invitational and instead chose to use this weekend to rest or concentrate on training.
NCAA champion Neil Gardner, junior sprinter Dwayne Fuqua and sophomore distance runner John Mortimer are just some of the athletes who didn't make the trip for the men's team. Gardner has an added reason for his brief sabbatical from competition - besides just conserving his energy, he is also recovering from an injury.
Many of the women's distance runners, including freshman Julie Froud, sophomore Marcy Akard and junior Katie McGregor, decided to abstain from Friday's competition.
Two distance runners, freshmen Nell Shields and Elizabeth Kampfe, traveled to Houston to attempt to qualify for Team USA's junior cross country team and the World Trials in Italy. Kampfe managed to qualify by placing sixth in the race, while Shields just missed the mark.
Despite all of the absences, Michigan still received several quality performances.
Senior Damon Devasher placed first in the 60-yard dash. Freshman Steve Jenkins, normally right on Devasher's heels in the 60, finished sixth with a time of 7.01 - a decent performance considering the conditions in which he was running.
"I felt pretty good about my race," Jenkins said. "I didn't have spikes in my shoes, and I still felt pretty good."
Friday's men's mile run had a slightly unusual twist to it. Instead of being timed chronologically, the race began with a countdown of 4:00 in order to pace the runners on a Bowen Field House record-setting sub-four-minute mile. Two runners managed to break the barrier and the record, while three Wolverines were right behind. Redshirt sophomore Don McLaughlin, senior Scott MacDonald and freshman Jay Cantin finished third, fourth and fifth, respectively.
Cantin said he didn't regret his decision to run, but felt he could have done much better.
"I didn't do as well as I wanted to," Cantin said. "If I could do it again, I would have run a lot tougher. I wasn't intimidated by the paced race. I'm capable of running with those guys - I can probably hit around 4:02. I just wanted to stay with the guys in front."
"(The meet) was a joke," Forrester said. "It was too long and disorganized. Too many people entered (the competition) and not many were very good."
Freshman Maria Brown, junior Tania Longe and senior Katy Hollbacher all turned in impressive performances. Brown finished first in the 200, breaking the school record with a time of 24.19 seconds. Longe and Hollbacher each finished second in their respective events, the long jump and the 3,000.
Michigan got a scare when freshman Lisa Ouellet tripped in the 800, preventing her from finishing.
Ouellet was cut off by two Eagles - one in front of her and one behind her. Michigan and Eastern have a history of bad blood this season, but Ouellet didn't consider that a valid excuse for unsportsmanlike conduct.
"I was scratched up pretty bad, but I'll be all right," Ouellet said. "It's really upsetting that my personal best is so much faster than theirs, but they'd try to win the race that way. This isn't football."