LARAMIE – Track records are meant to be broken.
 
But breaking a Cowboy record that has stood for almost a half-century is a rare feat.
 
Wyoming freshman Jackson Aydelott ran the fastest outdoor 400-meter dash in program history with a time of 46.43 seconds at the Doug Max Invitational on May 2 in Fort Collins.
 
Dennis Taruru (46.44) had held the record since 1977.
 
"We look at all the ones from the 70s and the 80s and try to figure out who we can get in here to break them," UW head coach Bryan Berryhill said.
 
Aydelott brought himself to UW's attention. He won three high school state championships at the 3A level in Texas, but getting recruited by Division I track and field programs in rural Vernon, a town of about 10,000 located just south of the Oklahoma border, wasn't easy.
 
The father of one of his track teammates used Aydelott's email account to contact multiple schools per day on his behalf while he was at school or practicing. UW sprints/hurdles assistant Ben Santos answered the cold call and set up a visit to Laramie for Aydelott in November 2024.
 
"Everything seemed to fall together in the right places," Aydelott said. "I liked the coaches. It's pretty here. Being from flat north Texas, it's nice to see something different and it feels refreshing to be here coming from a small town. This is a small town, but it feels different."
 
Aydelott arrived on campus last August and experienced 7,220 feet for the first time in competition during a pick-up game at Half Acre.
 
"I was playing basketball the first week with some random dudes, we're going back and forth, and I remember being so gassed," Aydelott said. "I was hands on my knee like, oh my gosh. I felt the altitude, but once I got accustomed to it after two weeks maybe I felt fine and I've felt good since."
 
During the winter, Aydelott set the UW record in the indoor 400 (47.31). He was also part of UW's new record holding indoor 4x400 relay team (3:11.81) with Cody Hape, Logan Brown and Chance Morris.
 
"I think with how my training was going I thought the (400) indoor record was there for sure. I wasn't too surprised to break that one," Aydelott said. "But with how outdoors was going I wasn't running how I wanted to or how me and Coach thought I could. I didn't quite know if the outdoor record was quite there for me this year. I wanted it to be, and it was in the back of my head all year."
 
Aydelott saved his best for the final regular season meet of the season in Fort Collins, where he broke UW's 49-year outdoor 400 record by one-hundredth of a second.
 
"I did think if I put together a good race, kept working and had a really good day it could go down," Aydelott said. "It wasn't quite happening and I was stuck running the same time and it was frustrating because my training was the best it has ever been.
 
"To finally have that breakthrough moment and get to where I felt I should have been feels really good."
 
Due to a cluster of injuries throughout the sprinter roster, Aydelott teamed up with a patchwork 4x100 crew – freshman Ryan Elsen, sophomore Bridger Norton and senior Carter McComb – to post the second-fastest time (40.20) in UW history at the Doug Max Invitational.
 
"There is some good chemistry and togetherness with the group," Aydelott said. "We're all competitive, we all have similar goals and we always work hard."
 
UW will compete at the Mountain West Outdoor Track & Field Championships this Thursday through Saturday at Veterans Memorial Field in Clovis, Calif.
 
Aydelott is seeded fifth out of the 24 competitors in the 400.
 
"We knew he had the ability but to be able to do that as a true freshman is pretty spectacular," Berryhill said of Aydelott's outdoor 400 record. "He shows up every day at practice ready to go and was able to finally put the whole race together after putting pieces together through the whole outdoor season. … The first step (at the MW Championships) is you have to make the final. The 400 on the men's side is a very good event right now in the conference. He's got to be focused and put all his energy into making it to Saturday first and foremost.
 
"Then once you get to Saturday just take a deep breath and run like he did this last weekend and hopefully he can sneak into the top three and get a podium finish."
 
Aydelott finished third at the Doug Max Invitational behind Colorado State's Kenny Carpenter (45.71) and Air Force's Zachary DeWalt (46.35), who are seeded No. 1 and No. 4, respectively, at the MW Championships. Grand Canyon's Ben Stratman and Utah State's Matt Hall are seeded No. 2 and No. 3, respectively.
 
"I'm right there in the mix to podium already. The goal is to replicate what I did, run a good race and put everything together," Aydelott said. "If I do that, I'll be fine and run something pretty good."
 
Follow Ryan for more stories on Wyoming athletics on X at @By_RyanThorburn on Facebook at Wyoming Athletics and Instagram at wyoathletics. Also follow him at Pokes Insider at Gowyo.com/pokesinsider.
 
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