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March 2, 2007 > Sports > Solares breaks own record in mile run

Solares breaks own record in mile run

By Stephen Whitfield | Thresher Editorial Staff

Heading into the indoor season, two of senior Pablo Solares’ goals were to qualify for the NCAA Championships and break the four-minute mile. Solares accomplished the former at the season-opening Leonard Hilton Memorial Jan. 19.

Solares has not quite reached the latter yet, but he came very close last Saturday at the Conference USA Indoor Track and Field Championships, held at the Yeoman Fieldhouse on the University of Houston campus. Solares ran 4 minutes, 0.82 seconds for an easy victory at the conference meet, beating his own Rice record in the process. An hour later, he came back to place second in the 800 meters.

Solares will have one more chance to break four minutes at the national meet in Fayetteville, Ark. March. 10-11. He said he is happy with the mark but is looking forward to nationals. Last year, he provisionally-qualified with the 18th-fastest time in the mile, but only 17 runners were invited to compete.

“I basically felt good because of the time,” Solares said. “I broke the record. Now I get to go to nationals. Last year, I was the last person not to get to nationals, and that frustrated me.”

Rice finished a distant third overall at the C-USA meet, scoring 90 points. Host UH bounced back from its upset loss to Southern Methodist University last year to take the team title with 186 points, while the University of Texas-El Paso placed second with 130.

But Solares was not the only Owl with a stellar performance last weekend. Sophomore Aaron Robson finished fifth in the mile, 11.42 seconds behind Solares, a day after making a surprising charge in the final 150 meters to take third in the 5,000.

Freshman Phillip Adam’s 5,073 points in the heptathlon were not enough to top conference champion Jarrett Flax of UH, but it was still sufficient to break the 5,035-point Rice record set last year by Ryan Walsh (Brown ‘06). Head coach Jon Warren (Jones ‘88) said Adam’s feat was even more impressive given his inexperience — it was only the second time he had competed in a multi-event contest.

“We haven’t had many people [run the heptathlon], but Ryan Walsh was a national qualifier … as a senior and Phillip is a freshman, so that’s saying quite a lot,” Warren said. “While he’s learning quite a bit, he had a pretty stellar performance.”

Heading into the final event of the heptathlon, the 1,000 meters, Adam needed 709 points to eclipse Walsh’s mark. In order to do that he had to break his personal-best time. His time of 2:51.89 was more than enough to do that, giving him 746 points and clinching a second-place finish overall.

“I didn’t think I was going to get [the record] heading into the 1,000, but I had a 10-second [personal best],” Adam said. “After that, I realized I’d pretty much broken it and I was pretty amazed, especially running 10 seconds faster in the 1,000.”

Adam was one of several freshmen to contribute significantly to the Owls’ third-place finish. Freshman Ryan Gard ran 49.49 seconds in the 400 to finish sixth. Freshman John Buck was seventh in the 800 with a time of 1:56.14, 3.3 seconds behind Solares. Daryl Zavesky ran an eighth-place 8.43 seconds in the 60-meter hurdles, 0.22 behind junior Tyler Whitham’s personal-best fourth-place time of 8.21 seconds.

In the field events, senior Luke Stadel threw 54 feet, 10.25 inches to take second in the shot put, while junior Omar Wright cleared 6-9 in the high jump to finish fifth.

While Solares will head to the NCAA meet, the rest of the Owls will spend the next month training for the start of the outdoor season, which begins March. 23 with the TSU Relays. Warren said the team will practice hard for outdoor competition.

“You play this juggling act in indoor where you try to win a championship while staying fit enough to do well in outdoor,” Warren said. “Now we crank it up with a heavy training period [until] outdoor gets going.”

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