Welcome to the Physical Education Page

In preparation for this year's Watermelon Run, summer training routines of the Fremont High staff ranged anywhere from full Ironman twice a day workouts to casual jogging, walking and hiking to some routines utilizing a couch (??), a remote, and "thinking about exercising." Traditional workouts of jogging, walking or hiking, cycling and going to the gym were the majority fitness regiments of the staff. Ultra-hip teachers did ultra-sweat workouts with Wii sports and Guitar Hero. Being creative and using resources right in front of them, many staff played with, chased after or transported their kids to their respective activities and felt they got a pretty decent workout doing so. However, I have to wonder if some other workouts actually stressed one's heart enough to be considered a workout such as: tanning by the pool, chip and dipping, donut curls, eating lots of fried food in the South and then sweating it out in the humidity, watching the Olympics, and one person incorporating lots of heavy breathing but they never said if they were actually exercising at the same time.

Kudoos to the following staff for their various accomplishments last summer.

HIKING: climbed to the top of 2 pyramids (Magaly), took 13 high school students backpacking in Tahoe (Silimperi), all over Glacier National Park (Heinke), all over Tobago (Dass, Nethers, Tuana), backpacked around Europe (Woosley), hiking all summer long (Wu) (Turner).

RUNNING: 2008 San Diego Marathon (Philippe), running & rowing legs of Sequoia Lake Triathlon (Beckstrom), MADD 5K (Misfeldt), lots of regular joggers (Abreau, Smith M, Townsend, Li , Kim I, Kang, Addiego, Neubauer, Horman, Magee), ran once (Liu), thought about running (Gibson), chased kids (Nadeau, Addiego, Abreau, Townsend, Smith M), staff who have a running past...1/2 marathon 2006 (Rilea), 2007 SF Marathon (Ponikvar).

BICYLING: daily or almost daily (Dudley, Goodman, McCabe, McComb, Neubauer, Ramirez, Hardy), completed a century-100mi (Bickman), to SF (Townsend & Wong), 3 centuries (Magee), to Alaska (Kitson-whoops, he was on a motorcylce but for 5 weeks!).

TRIATHLON: 2 1/2 iron mans, 1 Olympic distance (Magee).

CROSS TRAINING: Puccinelli, Lin, Addiego, Smith M, Townsend, Magee, Chiu, Jones, Ramirez, Lopez G, Li, Perez D, Kang, , Sims, Kim Y.

WALKING: Long, Addiego, Kumar, Gelvis, Magaly, Wu

YOGA: Jones

Some UNIQUE athletic accomplishements boasted by our staff include: learning to tightrope walk (Dobervich), held tree pose for over 1 min (Blasko), can do the splits (Perez), lifting two 10lb watermelons daily in preparation (Kladstrup), ate 2 Chipolte burritos in 5 min (Lin), ate 6 Twinkees in 60 sec. (Young D), watched Women's Olympic Beach Volleyball while running in place (Canavese), went piranha fishing (Fitz), did endless hours of Guitar Hero (Clarke), got married in 15 min 35 sec (Soto, B-but even better accomplishment is that he can now take out the trash & put the toilet seat down).

Race plans range from the impressive to the literal with such mantras as: Slow and steady (McComb), Turtle beats the hare (Philippe), Those who fail to plan, plan to fail (Canavese), Leave it all on the track (Young), Short hair will propel me faster (Liu), Listen to whatever Michael Phelps had on his iPod (Soto), I will not be beat by a dog again (Abreau), Don't throw up (Smith M), Don't get trampled by kids in speedos (Neubauer & Fitz), Cheat (Tuana), The pen is mightier than the track! (Misfeldt), Keep up with Dick Canavese (Dass), Stay in front of the band (Kelly), Show up, try hard, drink lots of water and bring your iPod (Misfeldt), Distilled is best (Nadeau), Go out medium/fast and kick it home (Puccinelli), I'm going to chase my kids around the track (Dudley) and if all else fails....Tie shoelaces of your opponents (Kim Y).

With over a dozen messages from various members, some a little threatening that they'd have to silence me if they told me their department race plans, I realize just how competitive this race has become. However, a few staff members were willing to slip me a few details. The Math department has snuck "How fast can you run?" into their interview process while also looking into hiring Usain Bolt look-alikes. Special Ed has requested to use as many accomodations that they can legally get. One department (hint: S.S) as been overheard to be planning to use the "Red Rover Wall" strategy so watch out for barricades on the run. English might deliver a dramatic reading of Hamlet to mess up your running pace. But if that doesn't work, you can always use the tactic "dress to impress" says English teacher Stephanie Griesmer.

Whatever your race day plans are, no matter what you choose to wear, and no matter what training you did over the summer (or didn't do), just get out there and try your best! Encourage someone to come that really might be a little hesistant. It's a great event and you'll have a super time! Guaranteed! DON'T FORGET-THE FREMONT POOL WILL BE OPEN FROM 4:30 TO 5:30pm. Thanks to Steve Puccinelli!!

In closing, the best comments are often left to last. "Can't we all just get along?" (Jones) And in the words of that famous Italian stallion on our campus, "Whatever!" (Canavese)

Check out the opening day Fremont Olympics that got many of our staff mentally and physically prepared for their big event on 9/4/08!