Steve Weeks remembers how just this past year, at the Big East championship in Jamesville, N.Y., the conditions were dreadful for most teams. But not for the Syracuse track team, which deals with awful weather on a consistent basis in training.

Weeks said other Northeast teams at the meet had no idea how to handle the wet conditions, almost looking panicked and losing focus because of the weather and the effect it had on the course.

For SU, though, it was just another day of running in miserable weather.

‘It was snowy and wet and muddy,’ the senior Weeks said. ‘Just being able to train in this all the time is a huge advantage. You get on a dry course, and it makes it seem like you’re running really easy.’

Running in snow, sleet and subzero temperatures makes SU one of the most battle-tested teams in the Big East. And it also makes it better.

‘It makes it tougher, but in the long run, it’s an advantage, just because it makes us tougher,’ Weeks said.

Senior Cassie White didn’t travel with the team when it ran in two meets in Kenosha, Wis., and Boston in the 2009 season. But White said she remembers her teammates showing her pictures of the rain-soaked conditions after they returned from the meet. The courses were less than manageable for most teams. But Syracuse isn’t most teams.

White said SU was able to handle the course well because the team knows how to run in any temperature and weather.

This winter, 151 inches of snow have fallen on Syracuse, according to the National Weather Service. Temperatures average 21.7 degrees. Although the team acknowledges the consistent cold and precipitation helps them in the long run, the weather does sometimes get in the way of the team’s near-daily outdoor preparation.

White has seen her share of slip-and-slides. So has distance runner Pat Dupont.

‘When we get going fast outside sometimes, we’ll get on some trails that probably aren’t ready to be run yet, but we’re excited, so we go anyway,’ Dupont said. ‘There are some falls, and stuff happens.’

Overall, the team just has to be more cautious on the trails and streets it runs down. When it gets unbearably cold, that’s when SU head coach Chris Fox pulls them inside. That’s usually when the temperatures dip below zero.

Fox agrees with most of the members of his team that the weather toughens Syracuse. But he also takes the approach that it may hinder the Orange’s preparation.

‘It’d be great if it was 75 degrees and sunny all the time, but it doesn’t hurt us,’ Fox said. ‘It slows us down a little bit. It puts us maybe a couple weeks behind schools that are in great weather, but it all equals out by May and June, which is important to us.

‘It has no effect whatsoever during cross country.’

The bleak weather also has no effect on recruits choosing to race at SU.

When Dupont shows recruits around during their visits, it’s always a topic he brings up. He lets them know part of the year can be demanding to run in. Most of the time, prospective runners — even those who live on the West Coast or in the South — brush it off as a nonfactor.

For those recruits who do consider it to be a factor, Dupont said SU probably isn’t the right place for them.

‘If anybody is not going to come here because of the snow, we don’t really want them on our team,’ he said.

Fox said the team signed one of the top runners from San Diego a few weeks ago. He said if a San Diego native is willing to run in Syracuse, it’s more about the allure of the SU program and not the threat of frostbite.

‘If you can train here in the winter, you’re tough,’ Fox said. ‘And we like tough runners. We like our kids to be tough. We like our kids to be kind of not spoiled. Being here in February, you’re not being spoiled.’

dgproppe@syr.edu

Published on March 1, 2011 at 12:00 pm