During a track meet, senior Jessica Delaunay does a lot of running, but most of it doesn’t happening on the track.

“I’m running around for three hours straight from event to event,” Delaunay said. “It’s very exhausting, not only physically but also mentally.”

During the outdoor season, Delaunay participates in the pentathlon as well as several other individual events, often occurring at the same time.

In the outdoor season, women’s multi-event athletes compete in a heptathlon consisting of a 200-meter dash, 800-meter run, long jump, high jump, shot put, javelin and the 100-meter hurdles.

She is one of several athletes on Western’s track and field team who compete in more than one event in a different event group.

Joining Delaunay as a heptathlete/pentathlete are junior Heather Hammond and freshman Kristen Lefler.

On the men’s side, freshman Josh Smith and junior Steve Wilson compete in different event groups as well.

“They are competitive no matter what,” senior Valerie Brown said.

Wilson competes in sprinting events as well as jumping events, a routine similar to what coach Erik Jenkins did during his days as a Western track athlete.

“When I was looking at colleges, a lot of schools told me I couldn’t run the 400-meters and (perform in the) long jump,” Jenkins said. “So that was a big reason why I came to Western because (former head) coach (Curtiss) Long told me I could.”

Jenkins said that a big reason why the team has athletes that participate in multiple events is the limited number of scholarships available compared to the number of events in a track meet.

“You have 21 events, and on the women’s side you have a maximum of 18 scholarships given by the NCAA and 12 on the men’s side,” Jenkins said. “So you have to be able to go out and find individuals who can score in multiple events to be able to win conference championships.”

Jenkins is also looking to the future in regard to multi-event athletes.

On Feb. 18, the team announced that they had signed incoming freshman Jantelle McNeil, who competed in three national meets in the heptathlon as a high school athlete.

Delaunay said that winning the upcoming Sun Belt Conference championships is her ultimate goal as well as the goal of her fellow multi-event athletes.

“I always try to put our team in the best position to win conference and carry over to regionals,” Delaunay said. “If that means having to compete at 10 events at conference in order for us to win, then that’s what I will do.”

The team will use these multi-event athletes when they travel down to Nashville to compete in the Vanderbilt Invitational this weekend.

Reach Chris Acree at sports@chherald.com.