Reed Fischer, an All-American who won three Missouri Valley Conference titles and set three school records at Drake, is one of the hundreds of athletes set to compete at the USA Track & Field Championships this week at Drake Stadium.
 
But for Fischer, the USA Championship takes on particular significance as he returns to the track where he won a Drake Relays title in the 5,000 meters in 2017 as a collegian and defended that title this year as a professional athlete.
 
Fischer, who is from Minnetonka, Minn., will race in the 10,000 meters Thursday evening at 7:40 p.m. in what is his second appearance at a USA Championship.
 
"It's always interesting coming back to the place I ran day in and day out for four years," Fischer said. "It's very calming to come back to this place and know that it's just 25 more laps around a track I've run hundreds of laps on."
 
However, those 25 laps will be some of the most significant turns around the Blue Oval that Fischer has made.
 
"When you think about the scope of it … it's the USA Championships. It's the biggest stage for an athlete like me to be on," Fischer said. "It's a weird juxtaposition of feeling back home and competing against the country's best."
 
In Fischer's last race on the Blue Oval, he successfully defended his title in the 5,000 meters in 13:53.32 by leading the final four laps of the race. Twelve months prior, he became the most recent Drake student-athlete to win a Drake Relays title with a late kick in front of an energized Drake Stadium crowd to earn a Relays flag.  
During his senior season at Drake, Fischer won three MVC titles and set three school records, including one at the Drake Relays, en route to qualifying for and finishing ninth in the 10,000 meters at the 2017 NCAA Championships. Fischer blossomed in his four years at Drake, continually improving and growing into one of the nation's top runners. In fact, he finished higher at the NCAA Championships as a senior than he ever did as a high schooler at the Minnesota State championship.
 
That senior season earned him a berth in the 2017 USA Championship in Sacramento, Calif., and many lessons he carried forth in his first season as a professional.
 
"Last year at the USA Championships, it was my fifth 10k of the season," Fischer said. "It's a grueling event, and you can only run well in a handful of them. Last year when I got in [to the USA Championship], it was a matter of going and getting the experience. It was a cool experience as a wide-eyed kid racing against Olympians."
 
Since then, Fischer moved to Boulder, Colo., to join Tinman Elite, an upstart team coached by Tim Schwartz. The fledgling team has already made its presence known in track and field circles by winning the USA Cross Country team title in December against more established clubs with significant sponsorship. Learn more about Tinman Elite.
 
"To forge a team in months and walk away as winners like that legitimized what we were doing," Fischer said. "We've made the team into our own, and between the four guys on our roster, we take a lot of ownership and have created our own mission statement, values and culture. We want this to grow into something bigger than ourselves."
 
While professionally training, Fischer works full time as the marketing and communication coordinator for the Colorado Mountain Club, an organization that has been delivering conservation, education and recreational opportunities to the Colorado public since 1912. Training as a professional and working full time is a challenge that would test the most seasoned athlete, but Fischer has used his experience from Drake to maximize the opportunity and challenge in front of him.
 
"I wasn't a guy who just went to class and ran track," Fischer said of his four years in Des Moines. "I worked part-time and was involved in a bunch of clubs that stretched out my time. Having that experience made the transition to a full-time job and training a lot easier than I thought it would be."
 
That training and transition from collegian to professional will come full circle Thursday evening when Fischer returns to the Blue Oval as one of the nation's top runners.
 
"It will be an awesome experience for it to feel like a home race despite being a USA Championship," Fischer said. "I have family coming down and people I know from my four years at Drake supporting me. That's something I have in my corner some of the guys I'll be racing against won't have."
 
In addition to the comfort of running in front of friends and family on a track that he has logged hundreds of miles on, Fischer has that benefit of a year of experience and professional training in 2018.
 
"I'm a lot fresher mentally and physically and more confident than last year," Fischer said of his mindset for the USA Championships. "I'm a lot more comfortable in this field, and I know the caliber of runner I am this year. I feel like I belong instead of being the guy who snuck in. I've got some big goals and things I want to accomplish. Hopefully, it is a good night and I can let it rip."
 
Following his race, Fischer and his Tinman Elite teammates will remain in Des Moines to conduct an informal meet and greet at Fitness Sports, the running specialty store Fischer worked at while at Drake. The event begins at 7:30 p.m.