Utah State

I believe the correct term is Mormon, you're welcome.

Wow, you sound like a reincarnation of my 6 years ago. I am LDS, but Provo was def. way too overboard for me. There is a plenty large, and great LDS community in Logan if you are interested. The running is awesome, and at times difficult, obviously depending on where you go, and of course, what time of the year it is. When I was up there, I aspired to run for the team when they had a couple of guys under 14:10 and a guy under 14. So, not the best runners in the country, but they were solid and a group of very nice guys. I made the team as a walk on, but it was honestly a struggle working with the coach.

As for activities, it depends what you are into. If you love the outdoors, especially the snow, then it is like paradise. Do you want to party? If so, I strongly suggest making friends with the athletes/frats...otherwise, the parties can be few and far between. There are some cool traditions, and this time of the year, the "Howl" is a huuuuge halloween party where tons of students come from surrounding schools.

As for studies, they have pretty good business programs, and their engineering programs are very competitive. I enjoyed my time up there quite a bit, but left after some time because I was poor, and honestly could not afford warm clothes...and the other necessities of life. Sounds extreme, but it is the honest truth.

What is Logan like for a non college runner ? good trails ? how cold does it get ? isn't like Provo or SLC for coldness ? good hospital ?

me too vern wrote:

What is Logan like for a non college runner ? good trails ? how cold does it get ? isn't like Provo or SLC for coldness ? good hospital ?

Logan has some amazing trails. Head into the canyon to stokes nature trail during the fall and its like running through a post card. Its amazing. The problem is that a lot of these trails get snowed in for 4-5 months of the year. It gets very cold. Many times I drove to school and passed the thermometer and it read 0 degrees, and that didn't even take into account the wind chill that can come out of the canyon. I got used to running in it, sort of...

I don't know too much about the hospital. Sorry.

Former Aggie wrote:

"I made the team as a walk on, but it was honestly a struggle working with the coach."

I too am interested in the program. What I don't understand is who the actual coach is? Is it Gregg Gensel or is it the other gentleman that I have seen at meets giving instructions to the athletes, Steve Reeder? I always see comments on the web page and in the paper from Gensel, but the the website says that Reeder has been coaching the distance runners for 30 years? What gives? My other question is about the development of the athletes, they seem to run well, but they also all look like they are 30 year old men. How necessary is the need to be LDS and go on a mission in order to succeed in that program. I have tracked some athletes that have gone on missions vs. athletes that haven't in that program, i.e. Chio Lopez & Nic Bolinder, and it seems that the mission athletes, once they recovered from the mission time away, have done WAY better? Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

It is funny that you ask about the whole mission thing. Although I am LDS, I decided not to go on a mission, and all of the other freshmen decided to go on missions. I felt that this decision that I made somewhat made me an outsider, and I felt that the coach somewhat discriminated against me for not going, BUT...in retrospect, those feelings could have just been created by me, with no actual discrimination. Gensel is the head coach, Reeder is the distance coach. I will be honest and say that I felt Reeder was much more nice and personable than Gensel. Just my opinion. As for the athlete development, our top 3 guys there were all return missionaries, extremely talented, hard working and some of the nicest people I have ever met.

To give you an idea of the workouts, there was one day where the juniors and seniors went for 10 in the morning, and then the afternoon session started with a 5 mile warmup, 8x400 between 68-72 with :60 second rest, then 4x400 between 58-62 with :45 second rest. For the top guys, they easily did this, and one of them continued with 200m intervals after that.

If you want to walk on, you better be able to get through a workout like that, or at least come close.

A lot can change in 18 years but in 1992, Reeder gave us the actual workouts, Gensel was the administrator who made sure logistics went smoothly. I thought they were both great guys. Reeder perhaps a bit more jolly, but both good guys. I never saw a workout like the one mentioned above. There were some hard ones, but none like that. I actually found I needed to grab some extra quality and mileage than what was given. I have used a few of the workouts we did both as an athlete and a coach in the last eighteen years. I am not LDS and never had a problem with it. Some of the greatest people I've ever met were in Logan and none of them held it against me that I didn't belong to the Church.

me too vern wrote:

What is Logan like for a non college runner ? good trails ? how cold does it get ? isn't like Provo or SLC for coldness ? good hospital ?

It's quite excellent for 9 months of the year. You'll want a treadmill for Dec-Feb. Things usually start thawing out by March, spring is short & sweet, summer is awesome (lows in the 50s, highs in the 90s, no rain), and then we are treated to a nice, long, beautiful autumn most years.

If you ski, then you will enjoy winter too. Greatest snow on earth here, and there is some fantastic backcountry in the local mountains. If you don't ever get out the valley, winter sucks though.

The trails here are very good. I've lived here for 9 years, and still haven't ran all of them. There's a lot of great trail networks that link up, and a lot of good two-track, ATV, and forest roads as well. Most of the surrounding area is National Forest, so is publicly accessible.

The racing scene here is kind of "blah". Although there's tons of little "fun runs", there's about 3 races here all year where you can get decent competition, and other than that you have to have to go to Salt Lake City to find a decent race.

The SLC airport is quite a haul for travel. (about 75 minutes).

Regarding USU, I didn't run here (went to grad school at USU), but I've ran against and gotten to know several of the runners over the years. Always seem like a pretty nice, close-knit team, never saw anything negative about them. They are usually very solid in XC, almost always one spot away from making it to nationals. They have had a few years where they probably should have made it, but flopped at districts. Definitely a Top 50 XC school on a consistent basis. I imagine that says something about the coaching, although I have not met them.

The hospital? Ha, I guess I can say it's pretty good. I've been to several of the PTs, a podiatrist, an orthopedic, a rheumatologist, a dermatologist, a urologist, and have had two babies delivered in the Logan hospital. All pretty good experiences, other than having to see a doctor of course. Sports med is quite good there. The food is also really good.

Oh, I should mention that it's usually 5 to 10 degrees colder than Provo or SLC. This is great during the summer, but sucks for the winter.

I did several runs last winter when it was -10 degrees F. Fortunately, it is usually not windy.

Air quality is often very bad during the winter due to temperature inversions that set in to the valley.

Logan is a great place to live. The school has some outstanding programs and some pretty average. I asked a couple African graduate students how they chose Utah State and they both said that the irrigation engineering program is the best in the world.

The team is pretty solid, especially for the WAC, but the Mountain region often proved a little to tough when I was around. Having coached with Gensel and Reeder I can tell you they are two of the best people that I know. I am not LDS and only a few athletes treated me any differently.

I think it is a great place to go to school and compete. The winters can be frustrating but the rest of the year makes up for it.

Thanks for thew responses. I was asking about the hospital because of work. I would guess the pay in that area is pretty low.

bump

I'm Nick Bolinder that you mentioned above. In regards to what someone said about being treated differently for not going on a mission that's completely false. The coaches here have been nothing but great to me. I've had a lot of Health struggles and not all are running related and they have stuck with me and givin me everything they can to help me. Our sports med team here is great and our training room facilities are some of the best in the nation. It was brand new my freshman year. It has 2 underwater treadmills and an ice tub that has had about 20-30 people in it at once. The running here is great there are a lot of farms around the valley so it's easy on the winter to run on a road that doesn't have much traffic. You get used to the cold andearn how to dress properly. We do our indoor workouts in the indoor football practice center. It's great and doesn't beat you up. Also I don't know how you can say chio and myself have struggled compared to some of the rm's chio has qualified for regionals in outdoor the two seasons he was healthy and has won an indoor conference championship. I was all region last year in xc in the first season I have been healthy since my frosh year....