Which collegiate cross country/track & field team has the harshest winter training conditions?

I went to grad school in Grand Forks, ND and now live in Fairbanks, AK. Both are fairly tough for winter training. Nordic skiing is the preferred mode of exercise if you have some decent common sens.

Grand Forks may be more harsh actually. It's not quite as cold, but frequently get's in the 20s and 30s below (for the high) and the wind blows constantly. Fairbanks is colder but you have inversions and can run up in the hills where it might be -10 or -20s. The catch is no good footing.

UAF does not have an track team, but does have skiing and cross country running. The high schools have track teams and often compete in April with 2 ft snow drifts around the track.

Stanford

Siberia U.

Or Eskimo U.

Maybe the University of The North Pole, XC team understandably sucks.

Although they did beat Penguin U. in a dual meet last year.

people mentioning the pacific northwest are way off. i moved to portland,OR from baton rouge, LA and found winter training very nice up in the PNW.

i recall that one reason bowerman enjoyed oregon winters were (paraphrasing from memory): they weren't so bad you couldn't do quality training, but they were just harsh enough to have a callousing effect.

i'd hate to have the double combo of altitude and harsh temps like gunnison or alamosa. though, if i were commited to training there hopefully i'd have acclimated to altitude by the time winter rolled around.

If we're considering all conditions, weather and resources it has to be North Dakota. I was on the last XC team that qualified for nationals and 13 years and a division jump later their resources aren't any better. There isn't an appreciably harsher winter anywhere in the 50 states. No indoor track. No treadmills. Access to the pool on an intermittent basis pending the swim/dive team's schedule. Hyslop sports center's 16.5 lap to the mile "track" has turns too tight for anything faster than a warmup jog, plus during basketball season we could't use it anyway. The remaining options were running the outer corridor on the slick concrete with all the other community joggers at the Ralph or outside.

As an avid runner, I have lived in Maine, Vermont, and Indiana. Indiana, by far, is worse. Way worse. It's not so much the cold and snow. It's more like when there is 5 inches of snow on the ground, 30mph winds, 29 degrees and raining. That's when it sucks.

Things will change in another couple of years. A 300m indoor track is well into the planning stages. Until then, it's going to suck just as bad as it did 13 years ago. The old Ralph has to be the worst indoor facility in the country. 270m per lap on slick, 10000psi concrete. Constantly wiping the dust off your shoe bottoms so you didn't go flying off the concourse like Apollo Ohno. Bad memories of overrunning my peak in 1995 getting in one last workout in at the old Ralph...

Ok, now THAT'S bs:Syracuse had a week of snow fall and temps below 20 this month already. The Lake Ontario snowband is now joke. And now that Syracuse has lost Manley, they're in rough shape for the winter.

D3 is for me wrote:

I call BS on the people saying Syracuse/Upstate New York. I go to a college in the uppest state part of New York and it is chilly and windy yes, but it is rare that a day becomes unbearable. The worst run I even endured was when it was in the mid 30s, with torrential rain and 50 mph wind gusts. That is far worse than the normal day here, but I have to imagine somewhere that is par for the course.

What's the closest college to International Falls, MN? That gets my vote.

FBI Crime Statistics wrote:

some bullshit about crime rates

when was the last time you heard of a runner getting mugged? What are they gonna do, steal your f***in timex?

Tempe

Mr. Obvious wrote:

What's the closest college to International Falls, MN? That gets my vote.

UMs Duluth, Bemidji, Crookston and.... University of North Dakota. Duluth winters aren't nearly as bad as Grand Forks winters. Bemidji has a nice 200m indoor track. Crookston is on par with UND weather-wise but they don't have a XC or track program.

Billings, Montana. Known for a heck of a lot of 10 degrees or less days, and known even more for the evil wind that comes on the chilly days from the east. I would also include Bozeman, MT; Missoula, MT; and the western sides of North and South Dakota.

The Truth Be Told wrote:

Siberia U.

Or Eskimo U.

Maybe the University of The North Pole, XC team understandably sucks.

Although they did beat Penguin U. in a dual meet last year.

I probably wouldnt open up your stand up with that...

fetzer wrote:

Some of the places listed don't really have solid running programs. I doubt anything in the continental 48 can compare to some parts of Alaska and Canada. But that's why they don't have xc teams.

I would be surprised if anything compares to Syracuse. From November to April it's a hell hole. Some places are colder, or windier, or get more snow, but Syracuse gets tons of snow, is very windy, very cold, and literally has no sunlight during winter. Awful, awful place.

Really? CIS cross country and track are actually quite competitive. Check the rankings on

and you'll see that. University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario would have top 20 D1 teams in the NCAA. Hard to compare times at National Championships though because Canadian XC courses are often a bit tougher and in cold weather. If you do a little research to see how well Canadian XC teams do when we compete in the US you would see that we do quite well.

HC wrote:

If we're considering all conditions, weather and resources it has to be North Dakota. I was on the last XC team that qualified for nationals and 13 years and a division jump later their resources aren't any better. There isn't an appreciably harsher winter anywhere in the 50 states. No indoor track. No treadmills. Access to the pool on an intermittent basis pending the swim/dive team's schedule. Hyslop sports center's 16.5 lap to the mile "track" has turns too tight for anything faster than a warmup jog, plus during basketball season we could't use it anyway. The remaining options were running the outer corridor on the slick concrete with all the other community joggers at the Ralph or outside.

Damn. We have a winner. Harsh.

Is Bismarck better than Grand Forks? I notice it is sometimes 5-10 degrees warmer in the middle/western park of North Dakota and there also seems to be more rolling hills to break the wind a little. Looks like the best high school distance programs come out of Bismarck so I thought that might be the best part of the state for running. I've lived in some tough winters, Northern NY but may move to ND and am honestly intimidated about training December-March.

In Canada, I'd have to go with Grande Prairie Regional College or Keyano College - both in Northern Alberta. X-C teams only, no formal indoor track programs. No indoor tracks either - in Grande Prairie, they run around an indoor soccer pitch in an old hockey arena - about 150 m around the perimeter.

Weather right now in both places - -13F in GP and 0F in Ft McMurray - typical for most of the winter. Alaska-like conditions from November to late March.

Sub 3:00 wrote:Is Bismarck better than Grand Forks?

Yes, Bismarck is quite a bit nicer during the winter than GF. Spring temps come 2-3 weeks earlier on average, general temps are 10F warmer throughout the winter, and the wind isn't so consistent. Bismarck still has brutally cold, snowy, and icy days, but for every one day like that in Bismarck, there are 3 or 4 in GF. Although, today, the Mother Nature is making a liar of me...it's 22F in GF and 8F in Bismarck.

Once you get used to the temps, it won't seem any more miserable than anywhere else.

The terrain west of the Missouri River (Bismarck, Williston, Dickinson, Bowman, New Town), has produced almost all of the state's notable runners. I personally think it's all about the hills.