In her first track and field meet since tearing her hip labrum a year earlier, Idaho sophomore Kelly Jacka broke the 200 meter meet record in the WSU Open Jan. 14.
“I was just really excited (for the 200),” Jacka said. “The practice before the meet, coach (Wayne Phipps) had talked to me and he just said, ‘Well, a year ago you would have given anything to be at this meet so just treat it more as a celebration of your coming back.’ So, I was just so excited to actually be running again.”
Jacka’s hip injury came after running phenomenal indoor and outdoor seasons in 2010. She was the WAC indoor runner-up in the 200 meter dash as a freshman in 2010, and earned a first-team all-WAC honor. Idaho Director of Track and Field Wayne Phipps said Jacka’s time in the 200 came as a surprise to many of the other WAC teams.
During the 2010 outdoor track season, Jacka earned all-WAC honors in the 4×100 meter and 4×400 meter relays.
“(Jacka) had a great (2010 indoor) season,” Phipps said. “And then, despite having an injury that we didn’t know about, (she) still competed very well all throughout the (2010) outdoor season, too.”
She is not sure exactly when the injury occurred, but competed through the 2010 outdoor season before finally seeing some doctors during the summer. Phipps said it is hard to know when Jacka’s injury occurred because she never complained in practice and continued to compete.
Once it was confirmed that Jacka tore her hip labrum (the cartilage that surrounds the joint), one doctor told her she wouldn’t be able to run for two years, or possibly ever. Fortunately, another doctor said that, although she needed surgery, Jacka would be able to return to the track sooner than expected. Still, the injury caused her to redshirt during the 2011 indoor and outdoor track seasons.
Even with this more positive diagnosis, Jacka said her year away from the track was a tough one.
“It still is pretty difficult when you realize that you are going to have to sit out an entire year and be able to do nothing,” she said. “I had a lot of positive people around me at the time so … it ended up being OK.”
After surgery Jacka started the slow process of rehabilitation and recovery. She wasn’t able to start running until April 2011 — nearly a year after the surgery.
“Every stage (of rehab) you think ‘Oh this is going to be the worst part,'” Jacka said. “It’s not an easy road coming back from a major surgery.”
After breaking the 200 meter meet record in the WSU Open, Jacka had more than enough to be happy about.
“It was just, kind of a lot going on at the time,” Jacka said. “I was just excited to have ran, to have won, and to have broken a meet record, so it was a pretty solid way to come back.”
Jacka’s joy and relief also rubbed off on some of her teammates. Senior Emma Goode, a training partner of Jacka’s, noticed Jacka’s excitement.
“(She) definitely (had) a huge smile,” Goode said. “Her eyes were sparkling. She was just really excited, just finally had that element of confidence back in her demeanor. She knew that she was ready, she could hit the season hard again.”
Jacka improved on her WSU Open time of 25.39 seconds Jan. 28 at the Cougar Indoor with a time of 24.80. She placed third in the event and moved into sixth place in the WAC for the season.
Jacka has put her injury behind her and set high goals for the future.
“I want to beat, like all the school records that are set, which are my coach (Angela Whyte’s),” Jacka said. “I want to take her records down … and then hopefully make it to regionals and possibly nationals. Ultimately I think my goal this year would be to make it to the Olympic trials but we’ll see where we’re at.”