I've just been accepted to graduate school at U Texas Austin and UC Santa Barbara. All in all, both schools have an equally strong graduate program, great professors, great weather, and attractive girls. It looks as if my decision will come down to which city has better running (trails, running clubs, running community). Any input on the subject from people who have lived in these cities?
i think austin is the greatest town on earth but i think the weather and a lot of other running factors you mentioned would point to sb.
Austin is a horrible place to be a distance runner between late May and late Sept, unless u like high temps with high humidity.....Santa Barbara on the other time is the opposite. It averages 70 degrees, year round; mild winters, mild summers; lots of good racing opportunities there in So. Cal.
SB... Great for hill training and close to a lot of races. Austin works if you plan on summering up in Flagstaff.
I don't know much about the running scene in Austin, but do you like topless girls in hottubs? If so you'll love this place!
Which Austin Marriot? By the Capitol? What time are they usually there? Do I need to be a guest to access the hottub? Sounds like fun!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5S9AJvhdww
Will it make me sweat?
The Doorman at the Marriott wrote:
I don't know much about the running scene in Austin, but do you like topless girls in hottubs? If so you'll love this place!
Sorry that I forgot to stop by when I was there for the Austin Marathon this year, but I had a nice time at the Hilton.
I work at UCSB and was a former runner (I run to keep from getting fat now). UCSB is great and Santa Barbara is a good running town. If you have questions, let me know.
live in one wrote:
i think austin is the greatest town on earth but i think the weather and a lot of other running factors you mentioned would point to sb.
i second this notion. there's good running in austin, so if you are "just" a recreational runner, it's fine. but if you are planning to train more seriously, the summer months would be very tough.
on that note, will you be spending your summers in the same city as your school?
also, if cost of living is a factor, i'm fairly certain that austin would be substantially cheaper (if you get free or subsidized campus housing this is far less relevant, and it's not at all relevant if UCSB's financial package makes up for it).
How is this even a hard decision? Yeah, Austin is the best town in Texas, but it's IN Texas. UCSB on the other hand is RIGHT ON the ocean, enjoys temperate weather year-round, and has many trails on ocean bluffs, in eucalyptus groves, and up in the hills. I attended UCSB back in the late 80s, and it was some of the best running I ever experienced.
life decided by running wrote:
It looks as if my decision will come down to which city has better running (trails, running clubs, running community). Any input on the subject from people who have lived in these cities?
i should have read the question more closely before responding earlier.
i have never lived in santa barbara. it's a beautiful city with fantastic weather, so the running must be good in terms of things like trails and year-round climate. i don't know anything about the running community there.
with respect to austin, i know that there is an active recreational running community. the runtex stores are the hub. they organize training groups (not elite level as far as i know) that run together a couple of times a week, and there are numerous other runners who run along the (occasionally crowded) riverside paths. there are also some decent trails in various "greenbelts". the footing can be uneven in places, but they are mostly shaded.
The only thing wrong with Texas is all the out-of-state people moving in and overcrowding it.
What kaitainen says is right. (Do you live in Austin, kaitainen?)
txRUNNERgirl wrote:
The only thing wrong with Texas is all the out-of-state people moving in and overcrowding it.
I guess it's about time Texans got a taste of their own medicine, since they've been doing that here in Colorado for years. Seriously, I've been to both places. DO NOT try to sell me on Texas, especially not over Santa Barbara. Austin is cool, I'll give you that, but the weather sure ain't in the summer.
A little heat never hurt nobody!
If you are willing to work out early in the mornings Austin is reasonable in the summer. If you are still running after 8:30am or so, you are getting cooked. After you live here for several years you adapt pretty well but it is a shocker the first summer or two.
Outside of running, there are endless amounts of fun stuff to do in Austin. No ocean and damn hot june through september but outside of that Austin is tough to beat. I've been around alot and Austin is probably my favorite city I've ever lived in.
Funny you should mention that, because I'd actually love to live in Colorado. In a perfect world, I would live in Austin during fall/winter and Boulder during spring/summer.
Santa Barbara's climate is about perfect, and it's clean and walkable and on the Pacific. But on a recent drive from LA to SF I was shocked just how unhip the town seemed: very homogeneous white middle-middle to upper-middle class with a disproportionate number of 50- and 60-somethings, a palpable lack of "edge", and largely felt like it was 20 years behind the times.
A SF friend described it as a "retirement community for B list soft rock stars" which felt about right.
If I were college age I'd take Austin over SB for sure.
Colorado is sweet, but it's not nearly the same as it was 20 years ago before it was discovered. I long for the good ole days. I actually USED to go skiing on a Saturday, and the drive was nothing.
saint barbie wrote:
Santa Barbara's climate is about perfect, and it's clean and walkable and on the Pacific. But on a recent drive from LA to SF I was shocked just how unhip the town seemed: very homogeneous white middle-middle to upper-middle class with a disproportionate number of 50- and 60-somethings, a palpable lack of "edge", and largely felt like it was 20 years behind the times.
A SF friend described it as a "retirement community for B list soft rock stars" which felt about right.
If I were college age I'd take Austin over SB for sure.
That's probably true of Santa Barbara, but UCSB is not in Santa Barbara. It is about not quite 10 miles to the Northwest along the coast in Goleta and it is very much a college town. You will rarely go into Santa Barbara when you are spending most of your time running and on academics. I wouldn't go into the town of Santa Barbara to run, that's for sure, but the UCSB-Isla Vista-Goleta triangle is about perfect.