When starting a blog where does one even begin? What’s that Broadway/show-buisness saying? “Take it from the top”… Well, I guess I’ll start my story there, “from the top.” Literally. As I stood on top of the podium at the California state meet looking down on my first place medal the world around me stood still. Everything else in that moment didn’t seem to matter except for that little gold medal. From head to toe a feeling of overwhelming joy filled my entire body. What I had been dreaming of my entire life had finally come true. I Nikki Hiltz was the California State Champion. It wasn’t so much the actually chunk of gold that had me so mesmerized in that moment but it was what that medal stood for and represented that had me speechless. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the steps I took to get me to that moment. Flashbacks of runs through my beloved hometown forest Nisene Marks, and all the painful track workouts, all the core strengthening, and god awful lifting routines kept replaying in my mind and I stood on the top of that podium.
I put in the work and the results came with it. In that moment I was a true believer that I had made my own luck by working hard. Nobody said that winning would be easy but my high school coach did promise me that it would be worth it, and boy was he right! The events following my state title were some of the happiest moments of my life. After stepping off the podium I was interviewed by the meet director and don’t remember at all what I said but I do recall smiling from ear to ear. Moments later as I exited the infield I was met by the people I loved most in this world. My boyfriend at the time was six foot five and lifted me up into the biggest bear hug you could imagine, my mom and dad had tears in their eyes, my older sister was beaming with joy, my eighty year old grandma patted me on the back, and I had never seen a bigger smile then the one my coach was wearing. Needless to say I was riding on cloud nine and nothing could bring me down.
Being interviewed after winning the 1600 meters at the 2012 California state championships
The California state meet is hosted in the town of Clovis in Fresno California. Out of all the cities and wonderful locations throughout the golden state lets just say Fresno is not the MOST desirable place to take a family vacation. The next morning waking up in Fresno was not what I expected it to be. I was expecting bells and whistles and a parade throughout the streets of Fresno honoring my state championship. Instead I awoke with a sharp pain in both my right foot and in my lower back. Weird I thought. Despite my discomfort I rolled out of bed and joined my coach Dan Gruber on a run along the bike path of glorious Clovis. During the run Gruber blabbed on to me about anything and everything, from yesterdays race, to where he wanted me to go to college. What he was saying was actually very valuable and interesting yet I couldn’t bring myself to listen; I was too busy focusing on the pain moving between my stomach and back. As soon as I could get a word in I told Gruber about my awful discomfort hoping he had the cure or reason as to why I was experiencing this sharp pain. He told me that it was normal to get sick right after a major race, he explained to me that in college he would always get a cold right after nationals. I nodded my head and agreed I was probably just getting sick. We finished up our run and shortly after returning to the hotel we packed up the cars and headed back to our homes in Aptos.
The car ride home was miserable. The pain in my lower back got sharper and sharper. I tried to complain as little as possible and also tried not to move. I remembered what Gruber had told me and tried to convince my self I just had a cold. This wasn’t helping, the more I moved, the more both my back and stomach would hurt. When we got home late that night I finally told my mom I couldn’t take the pain anymore, I needed some medicine, a doctor, anything! My mom knew something was really wrong and so she took extreme measures and rushed me to the emergency room.
I learned a lot about luck that night. It can come and go in an instant. Never take a moment for granite because one second you can be on top of the world (or podium in my case) and the next be grasping for your last breath of air (ok too extreme, but still emergency rooms are scary and never fun).
I love this picture because on my right wrist I have both the state meet bracelet and my hospital bracelet, also you can’t leave out the “YOLO”!
In my next post I will explain exactly what was wrong with me that lead me into the emergency room the night after the state championships. I will also talk about the events that followed and the remainder of my junior track season. Stay tuned and stay lucky my friends!
