Reed Fischer: An Elite Runner's Mindset

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Reed Fischer is a 2:10 marathoner and professional runner for Adidas and Tinman Elite. He’s also an Eagle Scout and one of the kindest people I’ve had the privilege to run with. 

When I think about people who have really nailed the sustainable part of sustainable excellence, I think of Reed. As a high school athlete, he wasn’t highly recruited. It took four years of extremely patient development at Drake University to become a name recognized in the NCAA ranks…and nearly a decade later Reed is still improving and now performing on the world stage.

In this episode we talk about:

• his experimental mindset when it comes to training plan development
• how even “negative” results can still have a lot of positives
• his collaborative process with coach Joan Hunter
• and how the story we tell ourselves about how sport fits into our lives isn’t always what it seems.

This was a powerful episode, and Reed shared honestly about navigating training and life when his wife Christine was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago.

Reed offers an inside look at the approach of someone who is a master of their craft, getting 9th at the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials and having just recently represented the US at the Marathon World Championships in Tokyo.

I’m sure you’ll get a lot out of this, and if nothing else become a Reed Fischer fan and join me in supporting him as he gets ready for the New York City Marathon next.

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I loved how Reed has played with different training cycles, so often we get caught up in thinking we need to do things exactly a certain way and his consistency and improvement is a testament that there are so many ways to develop and perform well as an athlete.

I also thought was incredibly powerful when he shared how running had to take a back seat while he navigated the uncertainty and challenging diagnosis Christine was dealt. In the episode, he talks about coaching me, and actually shortly after recording this, my family went through our own medical challenge with my wife and youngest son spending a combined 57 straight days in the hospital.  Thankfully, everyone is currently healthy and home! Rather than putting training on the back burner, I’ve had to take it off the stove completely and am just now getting back into some super short runs and starting to re-contemplate what goals I want to set and even if and how training might fit into our lives as now a dad of 3. I’m sharing a little of that journey on substack as well.

Until next time, happy training!

Connect with and support Reed:

https://www.instagram.com/reedfisch/

https://tinmanelite.com

https://www.hammer-and-axe.com

https://www.strava.com/pros/22433281

https://linktr.ee/reedfisch

Coach Griffin and Forging Iron Training:

Forging Iron Training Principles Substack: https://griffinjaworski.substack.com/ - leave a comment or question for the podcast!

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