Cal Poly grad breaking records by skating across the country

Posted: Jun 13, 2012 11:13 PM by Hope Hanselman, KSBY News
Updated: Jun 14, 2012 1:07 PM

A Cal Poly graduate is breaking world records by inline skating across the country.

Kacie Fischer, 27 years old, ran track for Cal Poly. Now, she's looking to move a little faster. She's skating from California to New York in 49 days. She'll break three world records along the way.

When we caught up with her, Kacie was skating through Greenville, Florida. Wednesday marks day 47 of her journey. She's expecting to hit Neptune Beach on Friday night to break her first record and become the first woman to inline skate across the country.

"My whole body hurts, my arms hurt, my fingers are swollen," Kacie said.

She's trying not to think about how much pain her body is in, because in the last month and a half, she's skated more than 3,000 miles.

"Would it be weird if I thought it was kind of normal coming from Kacie?" Mark Fischer, Kacie's cousin, asked.

Family and friends call her a ball of energy. But Kacie is also a survivor.

Going into her third year at Cal Poly, six years ago, doctors told Kacie she'd never walk the same, never run again and, certainly, never skate.

"Thinking, you know, I'm never going to be active again. I'm never going to run. And, then getting healthy, kind of was like, okay I'm definitely going to take advantage of this... And that's when I started writing out a list of things to do," Kacie said.

She's already raced to the top of the Empire State Building, competed in the Boston Marathon and run up Machu Picchu in Peru.

"I don't see her slowing down any time soon," Mark said.

In a few days she'll be the first and the fastest to cross the country on inline skates. Of course, she'll also beat the men's record by 20 days.

"We get emails from strangers that are saying 'Thank you for doing this. If you can skate across the country, I can work out every day."

Kacie says the best part of her trip has been hearing from the people inspired by her story.

Her trip is also raising money for Special Olympics, since Kacie has two cousins with special needs.

To watch her journey, click here.

Next on Kacie's list of adventures is to run through the rolling green hills in Ireland.