Missouri cross-country coach Marc Burns’ 10-year-old son crawls across across the floor on his hands and knees. From behind the couch, his younger brothers take aim with Nerf guns.
This is Deer Hunter, a game created by Burns’ children. The goal is simple: Shoot the “deer” with the Nerf gun.
Junior Kaitlyn Fischer, their babysitter and one of the top-two cross-country runners on the Missouri team, joins in on their little game.
Much like a deer, Fischer can run. As a freshman, she qualified for the NCAA championship meet in cross-country and was also a second-team All-American in the 10,000-meter race for outdoor track. As a sophomore, she was named to the All-Southeastern Conference team in cross-country.
“She has an insatiable appetite for getting better,” Burns said. “She loves coming to practice everyday, she’s very coachable, positive. And it’s fun to be around people like that as a coach. You want to build a whole team of kids like that.”
Although Fischer was the Tigers’ best cross-country runner for most of 2014, her season came to a hard end. Despite her strong showing freshman year, Fischer struggled in the NCAA regional meet and failed to make it to nationals as a sophomore.
Now, Fischer is using last year’s disappointment as a driving force in 2015.
“It motivates me a lot,” she said. “Not making it was a pretty big upset, so I’m definitely motivated this year.”
The NCAA regional meet was one of only two races Burns would consider sub-par in Fischer’s college career. He has been impressed with how Fischer has handled last season’s upset.
“It was tough,” Burns said. “But she has really used it in a positive way to be ready for this year and, hopefully, make the highs even higher than they’ve ever been before.”
One of the keys to Fischer’s success is teammate Karissa Schweizer. Schweizer, a sophomore, qualified for the NCAA championships in cross-country last season.
While Fischer is more of a long-distance runner, Schweizer has more speed in the shorter distances, which can be beneficial for them when they train together in practice.
“We always keep each other accountable and push each other every day,” Fischer said. “Some of her strengths are my weaknesses and some of my strengths are her weaknesses so we help each other out in that way.”
Fischer hopes the Tigers can qualify for the cross-country NCAA championships as a team this year. To do this, the team would need to finish as one of the top two teams at regionals or receive an at-large bid.
After her strong freshman campaign, expectations were high for Fischer as a sophomore, and Burns said the added pressure can be hard on a runner. Now, Burns feels the junior is running with more internal motivation.
“I feel like when the kids on the team get to the point in their career where they’re doing it just for themselves, that’s when really, really good things start happening,” he said. “And Kaitlyn is at that point.”
Fischer said that there are aspects of her running that she would like to improve upon. She is working on having a more positive mindset and is also trying to develop more speed.
Going forward, Burns has high hopes for his part-time babysitter.
“She’s one of the best distance runners in the country, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “If we can just continue to develop and give her opportunities and then put her in the position and then let her go, she’s going to be great.”