When University of Hawai'i track coach Carmyn James opened an unsolicited e-mail from a German junior heptathlon champion eager to attend the school, she recalls thinking, " 'This is too good to be true.' "

Four years later, as Annett Wichmann prepares to wrap up a record-shattering career, not only has it all been true, but James has long since moved well beyond "good" to "awesome."

If Wichmann describes her experience at Manoa as "more than I ever expected," then the people around her have come to think of her in the same glowing terms.

"The other day I passed (Coop DeRenne) one of her professors on campus and we both said the same thing — we each wish we had more like her," James said.

Not only is Wichmann a seven-time Western Athletic Conference champion (four heptathlon, three pentathlon titles), 13-time WAC medal winner and three-time All-American, but she's also a three-time academic All-American with a cumulative 3.85 grade point average.

Kinesiology degree in hand, Wichmann will represent UH in regional qualifying this week Eugene, Ore. and then in a school-record seventh NCAA National Championship, June 10 to 13 in Fayetteville, Ark.

The question as she concludes her career as UH's most decorated track and field performer is how many more accolades can she take with her?

And, then there is the perpetual one: How does she manage to do it all — and with a trademark smile?

At the WAC Cross Country Championships, heptathletes who were helping out as volunteers on the course were shocked to see Wichmann actually competing.

Earlier this month she won the seven-event heptathlon as the conference's first four-time champion. Then, for good measure, she competed in four more events over the final two days. Watching Wichmann rest, feet up on the high jump apron, for her final event and, then, almost without benefit of warmup, still earn a bronze in the high jump with a personal best, James said she was moved to tears. "And I don't cry that often."

Then, the next day, not long after stepping off a flight from Utah, Wichmann went to relax. Of course, for her, that meant two hours of salsa dancing. In what passes for the "off season," she paddles with the Waikiki Beach Boys Canoe Club.

"When I left Germany (to be a high school exchange student in Kansas), I cried on the plane," Wichmann said. "When I got on the plane to come to Hawai'i, I had a smile the whole way. I knew I was coming to paradise."