Paging Dr. Domke. … Paging Dr. Domke. … Please report for the 400-meter hurdles.

OK, so that probably won’t be the way Chatham’s Carlee Domke is summoned to the starting line for the Presidents’ Athletic Conference track and field championships. But for some creative public address announcer, it might draw a reaction from the assembled fans and athletes.

By the time the PAC championships are held April 27, Domke, a Plum grad, will have completed her Ph.D. in occupational therapy. Domke, 24, finished her undergrad degree in three years then stayed on at Chatham to finish her doctorate.

And this spring, she is finishing her track and field career, returning to action after a three-year hiatus.

Domke competed for the Cougars during her freshman and sophomore years (2017-18 and 2018-19). But as she was ready to head into her junior outdoor season, the coronavirus pandemic hit, wiping out the spring schedule.

She said she wanted to return to competition once restrictions were eased the following season, but with her crammed academic schedule, track and field wouldn’t fit. So between Feb. 27, 2020, and Feb. 4 of this year, Domke was away from the sport.

“I’ll be honest. Not much,” she said when asked what she did to keep herself fit during the hiatus. “It was really difficult for me — and this is something that’s always been difficult for me — is to keep up with exercise and be consistent with those things outside of track. I feel like the team structure helped support me a lot.

“I was doing yoga and exercising here and there and taking walks. But I wasn’t doing anything near collegiate-level training.”

As the end of her time in college drew closer, Domke thought she might want to give track and field one more try. She texted Cougars coach Eden Bloom, who had been her teammate at Chatham, to explore the possibility of using her final year of eligibility.

Domke said she got a two-word answer: do it.

Chatham’s women’s roster is flush with freshmen and sophomores, so someone of Domke’s maturity and experience, Bloom said, was invaluable.

“I think we were very competitive and had big goals in mind,” Bloom said about her time as Domke’s teammate, “so it’s been very cool to see that she’s still that athlete and is providing that (attitude) for a relatively young team that we have now.

“In the case of her in particular and a lot of our grad students, you’re just in a different head space at this point. A lot of the novelty of college has worn off, and you know what you’re doing.”

With all that youth surrounding her, Domke admitted it was a little awkward at first.

“I do feel some of the age difference, like when we talk about things I’m working on,” she said. “I’m getting my doctorate, so just the things I am doing are different than the things they’re doing. … But we joke around, and we have fun just like anything.

“At first I was like, ‘I feel so old, and all the TikTok stuff, I don’t get it.’ I feel like that’s gone by the wayside.”

Getting back into competition mode also was a big adjustment. Domke said she tried to ease herself into it during indoor season, being careful to “listen” to her body in training. Her hurdling technique, she said, came back pretty quickly, but the endurance, especially for an event as demanding as the 400 hurdles, took a while to develop.

Now, she said, she feels like she is back at peak form.

The results prove it. She placed third in the 60-meter hurdles at the PAC indoor championships and was part of the winning 1,600 relay team along with sophomores Aurielle Brunner and Kendall Sirignano and freshman Lauren Hall.

The victory in the relay was a watershed moment in her comeback.

“I remember when I came back I had all these self-doubts like, I’m older now. I haven’t done this in a long time,” Domke said. “The whole season I was just surprising myself every time I stepped on the track.

“But that four-by-four was just, man, I didn’t expect us to run that fast. But it was really rewarding, and it was great also for my other younger teammates and seeing how that affected the team.”

When outdoor season started, Domke picked up right where she left off. At the 15-team Carnegie Mellon Invitational on March 24-25, she won the 400 hurdles in a time of 1 minute, 6.55 seconds. She also placed second in the 100 hurdles (15.36), finishing behind only a Division I athlete, Robert Morris’ Gabriella Parker.

Her times in both of those events are tops in the PAC, and they helped Chatham break into the USTFCCCA rankings at No. 15.

As the outdoor season progresses, Domke said she will be experimenting with some other events, namely the 200 and the 400 relay. Bloom said she appreciates Domke’s willingness to try new events to help score points for the team, and that, she hopes, will lead to a strong finish at the PAC championships.

With only nine athletes, the Cougars women placed fifth out of 11 teams at the conference indoor championships. They have a larger outdoor roster, but it’s still small compared to most of the competition in the PAC.

“I have high but healthy expectations,” Bloom said. “Our roster is still small, and that definitely hurts you in track and field. We won’t have that depth. But, on the flipside, I do think we have athletes who can score and win, if not be in those top positions in six or seven events.”

Domke, for certain, is one of those. Now that she has some results to buoy her confidence, she is aiming high. Top-of-the-podium high.

“That’s definitely on my mind,” she said. “I think indoor, I was dealing more with that self-doubt. After the indoor season and, truthfully, after that four-by-four, it kind of lit the fire like, ‘I can really win this.’

“That’s my goal. I’m going to try to win the PAC. But at the end of the day, I really just appreciate the chance to run again. I didn’t think I was going to have this season, so I’m using it as an opportunity to just go and surprise myself, really.”

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