Run With Coach Fischer

Imagine this. The new head football coach is hired at the high school. He steps into his new role eagerly and is ready to go through the inventory of equipment he has to work with and make a list of things that need to be purchased. He realizes that he does not have access to any of his equipment because its location and can only access things by asking one of the assistants to go into the room for him. That would seem absolutely ridiculous, right? Now reverse that. A WOMAN is hired as the head cross country coach but she cannot access any of her equipment because it is currently being stored in the boy's locker room. That's my situation. Now, the school I work in is in some serious need of upgrades, including updates in gender and handicap equality to the bathrooms/locker rooms and a lot of people are doing the best they can with what they have to work with. But quite honestly, this situation is put on the back burner because it is not seen as an "absolute...

Central Wisconsin is a quaint and humble area. There are no major natural disasters that occur in this part of the world. No sink holes, no earthquakes, no hurricanes, no tsunamis and really we have a large quantity of fresh water at our finger tips. The most fatal natural thing in this area is either the frigid temperatures in the winter or if someone gets pulled into the current of the rivers. We had a series of severe thunderstorms make their way through the area. Lots of people lost power, trees were knocked down and it was reported that there were nine tornadoes EF0 or EF1 that touched down in the area. I certainly don't want to minimize the damage that has happened and impacted people's lives. A barn was destroyed, trees fell on houses and various people who are seasonal campers lost a lot in the storms. The WPS workers have been working all hours trying to rebuild part of the electrical structure that was damaged to restore power back to people who have been in the dar...

There's no such thing as an "easy" day or a "hard" day. It's more complicated than that...                              The more I learn about training, periodization, plan design and physiological components of the body the more I realize that I have so much to learn. It's not that I am not confident in my current knowledge, it's more along the lines that I realize there is so much information out there and so much research being completed. The running world is constantly being updated and training practices are changing. We are discovering new things about stretching, recovery and nutrition. If you are a coach and you aren't keeping up-to-date on current practices then you're missing out. It's not that all things in the running world are changing. We still have long runs, pasta parties before meets, dynamic stretching, mile repeats and things like that, but we are learning how to place things together ...

Event: Dances With Dirt Half Marathon Location: Baraboo, WI - Devils Lake State Park Click for Link Dances With Dirt (DWD) puts on an overall great event. It's a trail race on a challenging course with stunning views. They offer the distances of 10k, half marathon, full marathon, 50k and 50 mile. After you finish the event you receive a medal, free beer and free drink ticket.  Course: This is a trail race so not a place where you will be going to hit a big PR. The half marathon course consists of mostly dirt trails with a couple of spots where you are in grass trails in the meadow. It consists of dirt trails, some pavement and a part of grass trails that go through a meadow. It's mostly shaded except for the grass parts where the July sun is blazing down on you. The course was challenging. The trails were wide but still slightly technical. Roots, rocks and mud patches keep your mind engaged throughout the race. The first four consisted of few rolling hills with...

This topic has been covered so much but I think it's important to hear it from multiple perspectives. I'm going to focus on Instagram. Is Instagram a great social media app that connects us around the world? Or is it an app that just builds a picture of our fake fantastic lives in order to create FOMO among our friends and family? A lot of people feel as though Instagram is really impacting the mental health of young adults. From an article in Forbes (see full article here ), "According to a study conducted by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) and the Young Health Movement (YHM), Instagram is ranked the worst out of all the major social media platforms in terms of detriments to the mental health of young adults." It then continues by adding, "The study determined that social media has been described as more addictive than cigarettes and alcohol. That is why social media use is often linked to increased rates of anxiety, depression and poor sleep....

The fourth of July. America, fireworks, sparklers, cookouts and the morning road race! I raced the 5k this morning. Here is my recap: My game plan for this 5k was to not go out too fast, hold on in the middle and have a nice finish for the third mile. I don't race 5k's often so when the gun goes off I let loose like a bat out of hell. I do EXACTLY what I coach athletes NOT to do, I go out too fast and hit the wall at the end. Really, it's a problem, but I don't get to work on my racing strategy much. Of course, you may think, "what's the big deal at a local 5k road race?" I get it, but hey, I'm competitive and I want to see what I'm capable of as I'm approaching 30. Mile 1 - Nice and easy out the gates. Found two women who were running with me and I decided to slow a little and let them pace. Came through mile 1 just 5 seconds faster than my game plan but I was feeling relaxed and really happy I had people to run with. Part I of the rac...