DAILY PILOT HIGH SCHOOL FEMALE ATHLETE OF THE WEEK:Blood doesn’t stop May’s quest for state

When Hilary May takes off for a 1,600-meter race, she said nothing crosses her mind.

Check her stride?

Nope.

How about who’s in front, behind, or to her sides?

Nope. Nope. Nope.

“You just completely zone out,” May said. “We like to call it a flow state.”

All locked in. That’s until the Corona del Mar High senior has to brake. It happened with 250 meters left at the CIF Southern Section Masters Meet last week.

The finish line, not too far away for May, getting there in time to qualify for the CIF State Championships with blood gushing from the front of her left ankle is another story.

May began her kick, and then found herself tangled up with a runner moving toward the outside of the first lane.

A spike caught May, forcing her to slow down, but nothing could derail her at Cerritos College.

She kicked again, bolted straight ahead, finishing in time at 4 minutes, 55.54 seconds, good for ninth place. May knew she was headed back to state.

She knows May’s almost over. June’s next. Sacramento here comes Hilary May.

“I’m going out the same way I came in,” May said.

Ecstatic is May about advancing to state like she did her freshman year, when she was the state’s fastest freshman.

The two-day competition starts Friday with the preliminaries at Sacramento City College’s Hughes Stadium. She’ll have company.

Two of her three girls’ teammates, Shelby Buckley and Allison Damon, will be in the 1,600 event. The three were part of history, when they along with Sarah Cummings became the first four girls on a high school team in the nation to each finish the 1,600 in less than 5 minutes. Twice it happened this season.

Cummings will compete in the 3,200 at state. Buckley and Damon qualified in Norwalk, finishing first (4:46.80) and sixth (4:51.75), respectively, and they were next to May after running the 1,600 and the blood was dripping down her foot.

“The three blondes,” said May, laughing.

Just like the other two, May ignored the blood. She took off her left spike before joining Buckley and Damon. The trio moved to the side of the track, waiting to cheer CdM’s lone male representative, Tim Scott, at the meet.

Before rooting for Scott during his 1,600 race, May was approached by some track and field officials and reporters.

“They were like, ‘Ugh, it’s bleeding onto the track. You kind of need to go and get that taken care of,’ ” May recalled. “It was really funny.”

May said Damon made sure everyone laughed when she responded to those who came up to May.

“Oh! She’s tough!” Damon shouted. “She’s the toughest one on the team! She’ll be fine.”

May bought it.

“I was like, ‘Yeah! I’ll be fine! It’s not a big deal,’” May said.

It really wasn’t to May. She has her kick back and Corona del Mar Coach Bill Sumner said she’s set her two fastest times in back-to-back meets.

Sumner is proud of May and what she’s endured to return to track and earn her way to Harvard.

May broke her right foot as a sophomore, and she didn’t even know it. She said she ran on it for months. Yes, it hurt. It went away, and then returned like a boomerang.

She even thought the pain might’ve had something to do with her tying her shoes too tight before races.

“When [the doctors] finally found out [it was a stress fracture], it was too late,” May said. “I had to have a pin put in and a bone graph to repair it.

“It was kind of a sophomore slump.”

It wasn’t over. The surgery put her behind as it took place in the fall of May’s junior year.

She said her first race, after being dumbfounded as to why she couldn’t finish races as a sophomore, was in late April 2006. The postseason started the following month.

Instead of sticking with her favorite event, the 1,600, she cut it in half. She had to run the 800 because of the lack of training. It worked out as she made the CIF Southern Section Division III finals.

“I just love track and I persevered through it,” said May, who finished sixth in the event at 2:18.10. “I cross-trained a ton, I was in the pool every day and rode the bikes. I ran for like four weeks and made it to CIF. I made something out of nothing.”

May has turned it around. Sumner, who’s been CdM’s coach since 1982, was there to witness it all.

The night before Masters, he looked back on what it took for May to come back and make it back to state.

“I spent about 90 days with her just poolside when she couldn’t run at all,” said Sumner, adding that May, Buckley, Damon, Cummings and Scott make up the largest contingent he’s taken to state. “She had a boot. We take the boot off, throw her in the pool, and make her work hard in the pool.

“I was thinking you got all these things going, Shelby’s done a great job, Allison’s done a great job, but I was thinking, ‘Gosh darn it! If we can get Hilary to state again, that’d be great.’ She’s here again and everything is coming together at the right time.”

May knows it’s that time to let the legs do the thinking.

DAVID CARRILLO PEÑALOZA may be reached at (714) 966-4612 or at david.carrillo@latimes.com.