Nadia Jones will be covering her training for the next 3 months leading up to the Tuscaloosa Half Marathon. If you would like to follow her journey, you can visit this blog each week for updates!

If you are interested in reading about my Week 1 and Week 2 training updates, grab your popcorn. If not, you won’t miss much. Here is a summary so far:

• Week 1 – I cover The Galloway Run Walk Run Method and I attempt to define the word “postpartum.”
• Week 2 – Stop trying to buy your training shoes yourself and go to a running specialty store. I also discuss how NOT to clean your running shoes.

My friend and colleague Claire recommended the book, “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” last year. The book is by John Mark Comer and the subtitle sums it up well: How to stay emotionally healthy and spiritually alive in the chaos of the modern world. While it was the only chapter book I read in 2024 from start to finish, it totally changed the path I was walking down postpartum with my second daughter. Remember the heaping amounts of grace I gave myself in Week 1? I did, however, read “Goldilocks” and “The Hungry Caterpillar” about fifty-leven times a night in 2024 if that counts for anything.

One of my favorite quotes from the book was, “Hurry and love are incompatible.” I mentioned in Week 1 that I have reflected a lot lately on people who have impacted my life when I was a young adult. While many come from different backgrounds, they all share a common denominator – they spent time with me and invested in me through coaching and teaching.

I didn’t explicitly make a New Year’s Resolution in 2025. Instead of firm goals in 2025, I am on a mission to be less hurried and to love more. In 2025, I want to express my gratitude to those who have made a difference in my life, especially while I am still able to. I also want to be more present for those around me. God put me here not to be a bump on a log, but to be a light. In 2025, I want to seek the Lord daily, pursue Him more intentionally and intimately, and I want to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which I have been called. Part of walking in a manner worthy of my calling is also taking better care of myself - exercising and slowing down are at the top of this list.

Now to the reason you probably clicked the link to this blog post. On Friday, January 24^th, I attended the Grissom vs. Huntsville basketball game. For those of you that are not familiar with the Grissom vs. Huntsville rivalry – it’s a lot like Alabama vs. Auburn. This was part of my mission to express my gratitude and be more present. When I did the math, I realized it had been almost 15 years since I attended a Grissom basketball game. I was a little ashamed considering basketball was my first love and Grissom was probably the place that basketball impacted my life the most. The picture that I carefully picked so you would click the link to this blog is me when I was 5 years old playing (and loving) basketball for the first time at Huntsville's Southeast YMCA.

I reached out to the Grissom Lady Tiger’s head coach, Coach Williams, and asked if I could write the Lady Tiger’s a letter of encouragement – not necessarily for the game in front of them, but for the days in front of them. I’ll keep that letter between the girls and me for now, but the general synopsis was remembering the girl in the stands watching them play – and to play for that girl too. I reminded the Lady Tigers that even in this era where people are shouting “Caitlin Clark” when they score a piece of trash in the garbage, there are still little girls in the stands that look up to them. 

Side note - I also can't believe it's been 5 years since we lost Kobe Bryant. I had to explain to my mom (who briefly proofread this blog for me) that back in my basketball era, we would say "Kobe" when we scored a piece of trash in the garbage. I really came to admire Kobe when I became an adult and learned more about his discipline and his work ethic. A Kobe quote that I often share with young athletes is, "Never get bored with the basics." Kobe believed that mastering the fundamentals was the key to being the best in the world. This philosophy remains true in so many realms of life - including training and running. 

While the Grissom Lady Tigers did not take home the W that Friday, my daughter Rory still had a blast. She loved meeting “all the pretty girls,” waving my phone flashlight while they announced the starting line-ups (for Huntsville High too) and eating Cheetos. I did put my foot down when Rory wanted to hug the Huntsville Panther. Even though 15 years has passed, I wasn’t ready to let my daughter hug Grissom’s biggest rival’s mascot. I too, was able to slow down and enjoy being present in the moment from a totally different perspective – a mother in the stands. Being there watching the girls and getting to see a former teammate and a former coach made me reflect on some of the lessons I learned from basketball and how they have impacted my “adult athlete” days.

Here are 5 Things I Learned about Training and Running from My First Love (Basketball)

1. Winning and success are awesome, but the most important life lessons are learned in losing and failing. Michael Jordan said, “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” I can still hear Coach Stapler, former men’s basketball coach at Grissom High School (1988 and 1999 State Championships) barking at us kids in summer camp, “If you aren’t failing, you aren’t trying hard enough.”

Failure is good because it brings to light your weaknesses and shortcomings. If we were always winning, what drive would we have to improve ourselves? Set a training or race day goal and go after it – if you come up short of your goal, seek the reason.
 

2. “Winners do things losers don’t want to do.” My dad used to preach this to me growing up, but a quick google search credits this quote to Dr. Phil. I am going to give my dad the credit on this one because I know he’s probably never watched a single episode of Dr. Phil. John Wooden said, "Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.” I can remember Coach Barnett (my varsity basketball coach at Grissom) telling us in the locker room my sophomore year, “If you want to win something you’ve never won, you must do something you’ve never done.”

Winning and succeeding take persistence, discipline, resilience, and most importantly a desire to work on the not-so-fun things. Eating right, sleeping, pushing yourself in the right ways during training, resting, trusting the process, delaying early gratification, and being humble. These are just a few things that losers don’t like doing. If you want to reach your training or running goal, you are going to have to step outside your comfort zone.
 

3. Control what you can control: your attitude and your effort. You can’t control who your coach is, who your teammates are, or the fact that Bob Jones High School’s entire starting lineup and 6^th man are all D1 basketball bound. You can control your attitude and your effort.

On race day you can’t control the weather, if you’ll be feeling 100%, or where your pace will fall in your age division. You can control your attitude and your effort.
 

4. Defense wins championships. I would give an example of this from my basketball days, but since this is a Bear Bryant quote, I figured I would tie Alabama Football into this one a little. I remember Alabama losing to LSU in the regular season in the first “Game of the Century” in 2010. Love Alabama Football or hate them, they made their way into the National Championship to play LSU one more time that season. For some reason, I remember that Alabama only allowed LSU to cross the 50-yard line once. You need points to win games, but it’s hard to lose when your strategy for winning is protective and defensive.

A defensive strategy for running my friend and colleague Claire has taught me this week is running “negative splits.” Negative splits is a pacing strategy where you run the second half of the race faster than the first half. This allows runners to conserve energy early on and attack the race with more confidence and intensity towards the end.  Here is an excellent article on running negative splits for beginners. I am thinking about implementing this in my training and if I do choose to run the Tuscaloosa Half Marathon over the 5k, I will update you all on how this is going.
 

5. Champions are built in the weight room. Strength and conditioning were two words I didn’t know when I was playing high school sports. Heck, I barely understood these words when I competed in track and field at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. In my youth, I was more concerned about my numbers on the scale than I was about my numbers in the weight room. I was more concerned about looking thin, than being powerful. They say hindsight is 20/20, I know I would have been a better athlete if I would have eaten more of the right things and trained outside of my sport better.

Thankfully, I am still an athlete – just an older, busier, postpartum athlete. I can’t turn back the clock, but I can start now. In efforts to stay healthy for the Tuscaloosa Half Marathon (or 5k) I am eating more protein (more on this in the future) and following a training schedule that includes resistance training. For some of you runners, resistance training may sound absurd.  Did you know that resistance training in runners increases endurance, power, and speed? Did you know that it increases bone density (reducing the risk for stress fractures) and reduces the risk for overuse injuries? Resistance training is a key component to competitive running and most importantly, longevity in running.

Quote of the Week - Week 3

“If you are on time, you are late.”  - Coach Barnett

While I still believe in this principle, I have grossly failed to arrive places 10 minutes early. I need to take John Wooden’s advice and try to change this before it becomes fatal.

Playlist - Week 3

1. Walk it Out (Radio/Clean) – DJ Unk - This song is160 bpm and good if you are trying to keep your cadence high. I put this at #1 because this song was played in every basketball gym in 2006. After I got home from the Grissom vs. Huntsville game, I heard that DJ Unk had passed away from a heart attack that day. I hope you add this to your playlist, and it gives you a little boost in memory of DJ Unk.

2. Hey Ya (Radio/Clean) – Outkast - 160 bpm, try to play this song without shaking it like a Polaroid picture. I dare you.

3. Good News (Radio/Clean) – Shaboozey - 162 bpm, another good one if tracking your cadence with music.