Track & Field Report: Henry & Co. preparing for Charlie Thomas Invitational

Texas A&M will be back inside the R.A. 'Murray' Fasken '38 Indoor Track & Field facility this weekend, hosting the Charlie Thomas Invitational. Head coach Pat Henry joined TexAgs Live to discuss the Aggies' performance after splitting travel in Boston and Albuquerque.

Key notes from Pat Henry interview

• We had a really good weekend. We had a meet in Albuquerque with the majority of our team, but we took 10 people up to the meet in Boston, our distance group, and had a really good meet.
   
• Cooper Cawthra ran a 3:54.38 to break his own school record, which is a 3.5-second improvement from the previous record. It never happens. He was in a great environment. Other guys were running really fast, and you get caught up in the competition. Things happen that you didn't realize you could do. A 3:54 mile, that's getting after it. That is really, really good.
   
• The thing about track, at certain points, time is really important or distance or height or whatever. When it really gets down to it, it doesn't make any difference. It's about winning. Sometimes, race strategies dictate not a fast time. Because someone will, on purpose, slow it down or speed it up. It just depends on tactics within the race. The NCAA Championships or SEC Championships, it comes down to winning and losing, it doesn't come down to timing efforts.
   
• Once your brain starts accepting things, big things can happen. Track is just evident, you can see it. It's on a watch. It's on a stopwatch, or it's on a tape measure. Where a wide receiver who does something completely different and does it better than anybody else sometimes is not seen as a major change, and it really is. All of those things happen, it's just you can't see them always.
   
• Debora Cherono also broke her own mile record with 4:38.08. Getting a little better every time. She'll latch onto whoever is in that top one or two people right now, and she'll stay right on their hip, and then she'll just outrun them the last lap. She's very competitive. She doesn't really know how to run her own race yet, so she's trying to figure it out.
   
• In the Boston group, we had nine personal bests. If you can do that, it's worth going. The environment is very conducive to good things happening. It starts brains working a little bit differently when you can get in around some other people and be competitive. You can get in those places and give up too. Our people did a good job of competing. It's just as easy to quit as it is to compete.
   
• Aleksandr Solovev broke his school record at the pole vault in Albuquerque with 5.80 meters. We've never had a vaulter here jump 19-foot in collegiate. It's one of the best jumps ever. Ever. The next bar, he almost made 19.4, so it's really coming for him.
   
• Jaiya Covington ran 8.00 flat in the short hurdles. That's as fast as we've ever had anybody run as well.
   
• We had a young lady, her name is Winny Bii, and she jumped 45-feet, eight inches in the triple jump. That's one of the best triple jumps we've ever had here, as well. She won. It wasn't a school record. We had 12 other people win events, so we had a great meet all the way around.
   
• Jaiya had the second-fastest time in school history. The NCAA, for some reason, has an altitude adjustment. It's an arbitrary number. There's no data on it. There's no anything. They add .02 to her time, so it's 8.02. So it's not the school record. There shouldn't be an altitude adjustment, in my opinion. The rest of the world doesn't accept it. Nobody has an altitude adjustment in track anywhere in the world except the NCAA. In their wisdom, they have decided that Albuquerque is at altitude. Of course, Albuquerque is a mile high, just like Denver. But even Lubbock is, I think 3,000-feet, and there's an altitude adjustment at Lubbock which shouldn't have it.
   
• We've been fortunate over the years. I want to be in the mix, and we recruit what we feel are people that can be great. People who have a mentality of not just being a part of, they want to be the best there is. That's a mentality. In the recruiting process, you have to figure that out. Is this that kind of person? We've been fortunate enough over the years to be able to find those kinds of people. As a team, we want to get in the mix. If we're in the mix, we have a chance to win, and that's what we're trying to do.
   
• This weekend is the Charlie Thomas Invitational, a two-day meet. The first day is on Friday, and they finish up on Saturday. We have a good group of people here this weekend. Baylor is here, Houston, Mississippi State and about 10 other schools. It's a good competitive meet. The following week, we go to Clemson. Then it gets down to the end of February, and we're at the SEC Championships. Indoor season goes very quickly. The next couple of meets have to be very productive.
   
• If you come out to the Charlie Thomas Invitational, you might see some PRs. It's a fun building to go in and watch the competition, and you're as close as this camera is to the competition. That's how close you can be to somebody jumping high or jumping far or running fast. It's an environment that's fun to be in. It's not like you're far away from something watching. You're up close. You can see that athletic performance. People have a good time. Some people don't think they're “track people.” Come into the building, and all of a sudden, they kind of enjoy track. You have to take the chance and come into the building. We've had great crowds, and so I'm pleased with the way things are going.