o Charity Arn’s heptathlon point total at the Northwest Conference Multi-Events Championships went from 4,258 as a freshman to 4,341 as a sophomore to 4,514 as a junior, placing second each of her first three seasons. In a senior season featuring battles with injury and illness, her total at the conference championships was 4,333 — still enough to win by more than 300 points. At the NCAA Division III championships, she placed 14th as a freshman with 4,398 points; 15th as a sophomore with 4,444 points and fifth last year — garnering All-America status — with 4,896 points.
o Arn placed fifth in the javelin and eighth in the 100 hurdles at the conference championships as a freshman. As a sophomore, she was fourth in hurdles, seventh in long jump and tied for seventh in high jump. Last year, she won NWC crowns in high jump and long jump, and placed third in hurdles. In her final NWC championship meet held April 23-24 at GFU, Arn tied for the title in high jump and was second in long jump and fourth in hurdles. She was named Women’s Field Athlete of the Meet for the second consecutive year.
o She has two meets remaining — the University of Oregon Twilight and Whitworth’s “Last Chance” meet, neither a multi-events competition — before the NCAA-III championships, May 21-23 at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y.
o Two of the four athletes who finished ahead of Arn at last year’s nationals are back, including defending champion Amelia Campbell of Carleton College in Minnesota who totaled 5,221 points for the title.
o Charity Arn's heptathlon point total at the Northwest Conference Multi-Events Championships went from 4,258 as a freshman to 4,341 as a sophomore to 4,514 as a junior, placing second each of her first three seasons. In a senior season featuring battles with injury and illness, her total at the conference championships was 4,333 -- still enough to win by more than 300 points. At the NCAA Division III championships, she placed 14th as a freshman with 4,398 points; 15th as a sophomore with 4,444 points and fifth last year -- garnering All-America status -- with 4,896 points.
o Arn placed fifth in the javelin and eighth in the 100 hurdles at the conference championships as a freshman. As a sophomore, she was fourth in hurdles, seventh in long jump and tied for seventh in high jump. Last year, she won NWC crowns in high jump and long jump, and placed third in hurdles. In her final NWC championship meet held April 23-24 at GFU, Arn tied for the title in high jump and was second in long jump and fourth in hurdles. She was named Women's Field Athlete of the Meet for the second consecutive year.
o She has two meets remaining -- the University of Oregon Twilight and Whitworth's "Last Chance" meet, neither a multi-events competition -- before the NCAA-III championships, May 21-23 at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y.
o Two of the four athletes who finished ahead of Arn at last year's nationals are back, including defending champion Amelia Campbell of Carleton College in Minnesota who totaled 5,221 points for the title.
By the time she completed a stellar three-sport career at Woodland High School, Charity Arn was so done with track and field.
As a college freshman, Arn went to George Fox University in Newberg, Ore., intending to try out for the basketball team.
One thing led to another, decisions were made and Arn ended up as a Bruin not on the court, but both on the track and in the field.
Coming from a family of track and field coaches, the NCAA Division III All-America heptathlete said she was “burned out” on that sport, and laughs when asked if that was the path she envisioned for herself in college.
“No, I never wanted to do track again,” Arn said, with another laugh. “I definitely was not planning on doing track.”
Although basketball was her “first love,” she somehow ended up at an event for prospective GFU track and field athletes.
“I loved the girls and I said, ‘OK, I guess I’ll go to one of the practices,’ ” Arn said. “One of the girls on my floor who’s one of my best friends now, we were both like, ‘I don’t know if I want to go,’ so we ended up going together and just loving it — loving the coaches and loving the athletes. It ended up being the perfect place. I ended up just loving it.”
Arn has completed her GFU degree in communications, going through commencement Friday.
Versatility pays off
As a senior at Woodland in 2010-11, Arn was named All-Region by The Columbian in both basketball and track and field. She was the Class 2A Greater St. Helens League player of the year in basketball and an all-league selection in volleyball.
That background led Arn to perhaps the epitome of athletic versatility: track and field multi-events competition.
The women’s heptathlon consists of seven events — 100-meter hurdles, 200 and 800 meters, high jump, long jump, shot put and javelin. Each performance is converted to a point value, with placing awarded based on each athlete’s point total.
Arn said she feels most confident in high jump and the hurdles race and tends to score fewest points in shot put and the 200, but the key to strong scoring is consistency across the seven events.
“Honestly, I have pretty evenly spread points,” she said. “I really do like all of my events. I think they’re super fun.”
In addition to the physical challenge of the wide range of events, Arn said the mental challenge of multi-events is to keep an even keel and keep in mind that the overall point total is what is important.
“Sometimes you can have an awesome day in one event and then another event balances it out because it was so horrible,” she said. “It really is about the end point, and it’s about consistency and overall doing good in each event. Sometimes, even if I don’t get a (personal record), I’ll be happy with a consistent mark — a mark that’s at least decent rather than a dive bomb, because those are the ones that get you. It really is about consistency.”
Focused on the finish
Consistency in competition can lead to consistency in results.
Arn placed second in the Northwest Conference heptathlon in each of her first three seasons — second to a different GFU teammate each time — before claiming the conference title at the NWC multi-events championships held April 13-14 in Tacoma.
With only a handful of specific heptathlon events each season, Arn also competes in corresponding events in regular meets, including a leg of the 4×400-meter relay. The multi-events (heptathlon and men’s decathlon) are separate from the main conference championships, where Arn also competes against the NWC’s best in individual events.
At meets where she is not competing in seven events across two days, Arn said, it can seem like the main event is not happening.
“I really love the multi-events, and because we don’t have very many of them, it’s always exciting,” she said. “I like the small meets and that’s fun, but it always kind of feels like tune-ups. Once a heptathlon comes, it’s super fun because it’s like, ‘Oh, this is what we’ve been training for.’ It’s always exciting to be able to put that into perspective.”
Arn said increasing her speed has been the single greatest factor in her athletic improvement as a collegian, because that improvement leads to improvement in all of the heptathlon events as she works on technique with her coaches.
“I was pretty slow when I came into Fox, actually,” she said. “By improving speed, it correlates into all of those events. That’s why I think as a whole, it’s just generally gotten better.”
After three years of trending improvement in her point totals, progress this season has been hampered by injury (ankle, groin pull) and illness (anemia, or iron deficiency).
But Arn said she feels back on track, just in time for her final nationals May 21-23.
“Obviously, I want to improve,” Arn said. “There have been kind of a few setbacks this year, so it’s been a little bit of a journey, but I’m slowly getting back. It’s been an interesting season — a little bit disappointing at first, but I’m slowly starting to get better and stronger. … Unfortunately, my speed is not back yet, but I feel faster every day, so that’s good. I’m slowly getting back there. Even at today’s lifts (Monday), I can feel myself getting stronger again. I think there’s just enough time to get back to that level I want to be at, so it’s just perfect.”
