It was the first time in her life she’d run the grueling 400-meter hurdles, and when Washington sophomore Elena Burke came to the next to last hurdle at Tuesday’s Warrior Invitational meet she stopped.

Putting her right hand on the crossbar, she wearily lifted herself over a barricade nearly chest high on her petite frame.  And while the spunky sprinter had led the junior varsity race from the start, she ended up in second on a photo finish.

“I lost some steam,” she explained afterward. “I really didn’t think I’d make it over those last two hurdles.”

Serious as she is about her young track career, Burke is fully aware that what she faces on the straight-away at Kingston Stadium is minor compared to the life and death obstacles she witnessed first-hand on her recent spring break.

Going along with her family physician mother Dr. Maria Doce on a medical mission to the impoverished rural area of El Salvador, her 16-year-old eyes were opened to a whole new world.

“We gave glasses to people who had hardly been able to see before. And we gave hearing aids to little kids for the first time in their lives," Elena said.  “They were so happy.  It was an amazing experience. So many of them don’t have anything, not even lights or running water.

“It makes you appreciate what we do have.”

Burke, whose father James is a Spanish teacher at Kennedy High School, said her mom had gone to the small Central American country last year with a church group from Newton.  Dr. Doce thought her daughter needed to see poverty up-close. And be able to help.

At first on the week-long trip, Burke was assigned routine tasks such as directing patients.  As she became more accustomed, however, she even did some rudimentary vision screening and other more hands-on assistance to those so desperately in need.

“I would say it was life-changing,” she said.

Burke, who is also a cheerleader at Washington and plays oboe in the orchestra, came back home with a new perspective.

Not that it made it any easier to get over those hurdles.

At this week’s meet she did team-up with three veteran seniors for a fast runner-up finish in the shuttle hurdle relay. And in the 100-meter hurdles, she dropped her personal best time.

As for that long run around the entire oval with those wooden barriers in the way every fourth or fifth stride:

“I lost a lot of energy at the final curve,” she admitted when it was over. “I need to work on my endurance.”