State championship time is an exciting time. Each year it switches from being in Las Vegas and Carson City. This year it was in Carson. I had prepared mine, my moms and Charly's travel plans. All things were in order for Charly to ride the bus up with her team on Thursday and we would fly up on Friday. She would fly home with us Saturday night. Tuesday night I came down with a raging flu. It was so bad. Charly and I were both frantic that she might catch the illness, so she went to stay at a friends house. My flu digressed into strep throat, my old friend. Northern Nevada was unseasonably cold during the weekend. We got to her Friday night 300 hurdle race a couple hours early and it was fluttering snowflakes. I saw my baby in the infield with her Arcadia windbreaker cinched up over her whole face warming up an hour and a half before her race. The gravity of winning this race had reached an all time high for her after the last race at regionals. I saw her before the race and she was in her zone and could not even talk. Charly proved that she is without a doubt a game day performer. She ran the 300 faster then she ever has with a time of 43.2. She achieved her goals of beating her freshman time and defending her title. This race looked like it could have been a weekday track meet with how far Charly was in the lead.
The next day was sunny. She called me at 6:45 in the morning saying that she had chosen to sleep through breakfast at the hotel and asked if I could bring her food to the track. I stopped at Starbucks and got her oatmeal with blueberries and a yogurt fruit parfait. When she saw me her smile was big and her spirits high. The weight of the 300 hurdles was gone and she was confident in her 100 hurdle abilities. She raced the 100 hurdles with a time of 14.28 (her PR is 14.22), but she was elated to have defended both her state titles.
Our plane ride home. Three happy ladies.
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