Visit to Minnesota

I am wrapping up my visit to the University of Minnesota for grad school next year and thought I would take the time to summarize my thoughts on the school and the running program.

The school itself is in a great location, with campuses split between Minneapolis and St. Paul in a scenic area of Minnesota. It has one of the largest student bodies in the nation with around 50,000 students. It certainly doesn't seem that big because the campus is quite spread out, with it being on both sides of the Mississippi River. The engineering department is good and the professors I talked to seemed enthusiastic and very involved in research and solving current problems. Obviously the winters can be rough, but that hasn't stopped this and other northern schools from producing great runners. Another great thing about the location is that there are a ton of good running routes right from campus. The River Path goes for many miles on both sides of the river and there are lakes, a golf course and other city parks to run around as well.

The programs seems excellent. Coach Plasencia ("Plaz") really knows what he's doing, as evidenced by his own personal athletic success and the success of the men he has trained over the past 15 years. Such standouts as Ben Blankenship, Hassan Mead and Chris Rombough have all shined under his tutelage and I believe that it would be very beneficial to my development as a runner to be coached by him for one or two years. An interesting bit of trivia: Coach Fischer (my current coach) coached Plaz when he was in high school and Fischer was just a young coach! Pretty amazing how small the world seems sometimes. I am not as starstruck from this visit as I was from visiting UO, but I can definitely see myself succeeding here.

Another thing I really liked about the school was how all the sports teams support each other. I went to a hockey game (Gophers won, 2-1) and a basketball game (Gophers won in OT against Big 10 rival Illinois), and both games drew tons of attendance and support. Guys on the team told me how everyone likes the AD and the football coach, even though the team isn't great, and the throws coach gave me a very warm welcome as well. Perhaps I'm just bitter about the situation at UD, but it always seems to me that the athletic department is not well liked and the games are never well attended despite their best efforts. I just think it's great to see a positive environment for all the teams here.

So I think it would be pretty cool to go here next year. I would be thrilled with running for a Big 10 school and competing with against some great runners. Honestly just having a team again would be great!