On the morning she began her road back home to the Pacific Northwest and the NCAA Track & Field Championship in Oregon, the Pacific Northwest came to Wurrie Njadoe.
Rain was pouring down as Njadoe prepared to run in the Women's 100m in Manhattan, on the cloudy and overcast final day of the Big 12 Championship.
"I remember telling myself, I'm from a place where it rains 24/7. It's always cloudy. That felt like an advantage to me because I've been competing in this kind of weather since high school," Njadoe said. "It was about having a strong mindset, going out there and executing."
Competing in one of the deepest track & field conferences in the country, the Washington native raced out to a sixth place finish in Manhattan with a 11.49 time. That was enough to punch her ticket to the NCAA Regionals in College Station, Texas.
Every day since that rain-soaked sprint in Manhattan, Njadoe has been playing with house money.
"Anything else is a bonus at this point," she said. "I've been training since the summer, and I know the training has prepared me. No matter what happens, I still have a whole other year, so I'm really proud of myself for making it this far despite what I had to go through."
Since arriving in Manhattan from the Seattle suburb of Shoreline, Njadoe has been competing not just against the rest of the Big 12, but injuries that seemed intent on derailing her career.
At the end of her sophomore season, a knee injury limited Njadoe at the conference and regional meet. That surgery cost her the 2018-19 season, and right when Njadoe was beginning to feel comfortable after rehabbing back to full strength, COVID-19 shut everything down again.
You could make the case that the K-State athlete who qualified for more regional events than any other Wildcat this season hasn't been competing fully healthy since 2017.
"I was excited," Njadoe said. "Not a lot of nervousness, because I just wanted to go out and have fun like my freshman year."
Qualifying for Regionals in the 200m and the long jump, an event that Njadoe said she hasn't been training for as much this season, was an accomplishment in itself.
But the 100m still carries a little extra pressure.
"I really want to break this record, but I have to be patient," she said. "I know on the right day and at the right time it's going to happen."
With a trip to Oregon on the line in College Station, Njadoe had to settle for matching the K-State school record, with an 11.40 second sprint to finish in 11th place at Regionals.
That punched her ticket to the National Championship in Oregon. Not bad for a K-State athlete whose biggest focus in 2021 was making it through the entire season.
🎟 TICKET PUNCHED 🎟
Wurrie Njadoe ties the school record in the Women's 100m with a time of 11.40 and finishes in 11th place to book her trip to the 2021 #NCAATF Outdoor Championships! #KStateTF pic.twitter.com/JsUFa5kjl0
— K-State Track (@KStateTFXC) May 29, 2021
"Since the moment we started the indoor season, my routine has been about staying healthy," she said. "Even if it's a tough workout, I'm going to make sure I drink as much water as I have to and go to the trainers so often that they're going to be annoyed seeing my face."
Whether it's been extra ice baths – "which I hate" – or cutting out high calorie foods in her diet to stay lean, Njadoe has been ready to compete throughout the season.
For the record, it's not like her cheat days were all that indulgent in the first place.
"I'm going to eat fried rice again," she said. "I can eat rice right now, but it has to be brown rice and in small portions. And I can't eat to where I'm in a food coma, just to where I'm full. I'm going to have a full table of different kinds of food when I'm not competing this summer."
Before she makes room for takeout food in her diet, Njadoe still has one more race to run in the 100m at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championship, back in the Pacific Northwest.
That race may be a bonus, but Wurrie Njadoe still owes something to herself.
"I trust my training," she said. "I've trained just as hard as any of these girls and we're all fighting for the same position. You can't leave this track unless you've given it all you got."
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