The Campus: How does it feel to have been named Allegheny Male Athlete of the Week and Allegheny Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) Athlete of the Month?
Logan Steiner: It’s pretty good…to start off the season like that, it gives me great confidence. It boosts my motivation up a little bit, and because I’m coming off of a bad year last year, there’s a lot of stress so getting Athlete of the Week already this year makes me thrilled.

TC: What was your reaction when you found out?
LS: My reaction was, ‘Oh, I got it for something like this’, I wanted to get it for conferences which is later in the season and it means a lot more if you’re Athlete of the Week for that and you get noticed for winning conference or regionals, then that means that’s awesome. When I did find out I thought, that’s pretty cool I get noticed for all the hard work and time I put in.

TC: What events do you participate in?
LS: For track I do the 5K, I’m going to probably be doing the 10K this year. Last year it was the 5K, 1500, and I did an 800 a couple of times. I’m more excited to do the 10K this year because of how conferences went last year.

TC: How do you prepare for each meet?
LS: We all have our individual rituals that we do. For me, I just make sure I’m not doing anything stupid the night before. I get my rest, I eat really well the night before, try to load up on the carbs as most runners do. Before the meet, the day of, we go for morning runs, shake-outs we call them, usually a mile, two miles tops. As we get closer to the meet time we do dynamics, like stretching out, loosening everything up and then do a little light tempo right before and that gets us in the right mindset and pace for the race.

TC: How do you keep yourself from getting into your head?
LS: I get in my head a lot, running is a 95% psychological sport. You are always in pain and in order to realize that the race just started, I have 8,000 meters to run, you’re going to be in your head a lot. For me, at the start of races I like to communicate with some of the guys just because we’re not all hurting yet, so talking, pointing out some things, being distracted by little things on the course…just little things that you run by and just realize, hey this doesn’t suck as much as everyone thinks it does. I have to do as well as I can for my team because they’re doing their best for me.

TC: What do you hope to achieve in the remaining season?
LS: I’m hoping to stay healthy, I just had a cold so it’s unfortunate, but we all get through that and our immune systems toughen up throughout the rest of the season. Staying injury free as opposed to stress fracture, shin splints, any kind of ankle problems and what not. A lot of our runners are getting injured and it’s really unfortunate to see them go because they’re a part of the team.