Arts & Culture SPORTS
SDM ’s digital editor enlists pro athlete Chari Hawkins to help her find her stride again I Tried It: Running with a US Gold Medalist
BY NICOLLE MONICO
Chari Hawkins hits the track at UCSD with editor Nicolle Monico to practice proper running form and technique.
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Over the course of the next month, she’ll be showing me how to improve my one-mile time (currently, it’s 9:53) with tips and tricks pro runners use. Dressed in a purple sports bra and floral Spandex shorts, the 32-year-old is as spirited as her neon pink and purple Brooks running shoes. As a heptathlete (aka a badass), she competes in seven track and field events: the 100-meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200-meter run, long jump, javelin throw, and 800-meter run. Her laundry list of credits runs deep: gold at the USATF Indoor Championships as the 2022 US national pentathlon champion, first place in 2022 at the World Athletics Combined Events Tour in the heptathlon, 12 th overall in the heptathlon at the 2019 World Championships in Doha, Qatar. This past September, she competed in the World Athletics Championship, representing Team USA in Budapest, Hungary, where she placed 8 th . Hawkins is currently in an o ff -season, but training months typically include around nine to 10 hours a day of physical and
he itch of the grass takes me back. Cartwheels in the school yard. Daydreams and ladybugs. Only, I’m not nine. I’m nearly 40, lying in the center of a college track, trying to catch my breath. On my left, US gold medalist, heptathlete, and SD local Chari Hawkins is trying to distract me from my rapid inhales and exhales. We just finished three sets of 100-meter, high- knee drills. Each was about 20 seconds long, but my chest is exploding. Before 2020, my walls were decorated with race medals from 5Ks to full marathons. I loved running. Then the pandemic hit, and, with it, a debilitating depression that took it all away. Nowadays, the sport brings up memories of lying in bed, mustering up the courage just to leave my room. Today, on this track, I’m eager to put the past behind me. But my breathing doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Am I having an asthma attack? I avoid Hawkins’ eye contact and begin to wonder whether I was cut out for this assignment.
48 NOVEMBER 2023
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