Some Gophers are heading to the University of Wisconsin-River Falls Invitational this weekend. Some are going to race at the Ted Nelson Classic in Mankato.

Others have a week off and are using it to their full advantage.

“We have a weekend off so we’ll take time to train,” Director of Women’s Track and Field Matt Bingle said. “There’s about 10 days here to train, and we want to take care of our bodies and rest a little bit.”

The Gophers competed for three straight weeks coming out of winter break. That took a toll on some of the competitors.

“It was our third week in a row competing, so we were a bit tired,” senior Alena Brooks said. “We’ll use this weekend as a rest period to rebuild. I think we’ll do much better.”

Brooks said she and her teammates are going to use the off week to rebuild and get into more volume-intense workouts.

“When you compete three weeks in a row as we did, you don’t get much space to put in work,” Brooks said. “It’ll be great to have a week like this to really put in some work to move forward.”

On top of conditioning, the Gophers are focusing on staying healthy. The pivotal Big Ten indoor championships are at the end of February

“We’ve got a few weeks left in the season, and we’ve got to take care of ourselves,” Bingle said.

The Gophers don’t race until Valentine’s Day, when some athletes will travel to Ames, Iowa, for the Iowa State Classic. Others will stay in Minnesota for the St. Thomas Showcase.

The men’s team isn’t racing at all this weekend, but it will also be at the Iowa State Classic next.

At the same time, some of Minnesota’s runners will also be in River Falls and Seattle for the Washington Husky Invite.

“We’ll head into Iowa State and go at it again,” Bingle said.