“I think one of the things that I would tell my high school self is to just be patient. And I think we want it now, want it to happen. We want the perfect race. We want it all as quickly as possible. And patience also comes with an enjoyment of the whole process. Knowing that you’re not just stressing out about the race that’s in three weeks or four weeks, but enjoying the time that you have with the people around you until that time comes.”

Welcome to the PT Rebels Podcast. This is the place to learn how you can become a PT rebel and take charge of your own health and wellness. We will help you find answers to your questions about pain, injury, and the path towards healing in the most efficient and effective way possible. I’m your host, Dr. Gina Fick.

Dr. Fick: I wanted to welcome my good friend Ashley Jones. Ashley is a collegiate track and field athlete at the University of Tennessee, and I’ve known Ashley for quite a while now, and it’s just such a pleasure to have her on the program. Ashley, welcome.

Ashley: Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Fick: Of course. Ashley, can you tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself and your background and where you’re at now?

Ashley: Yes, so I’m a senior at the University of Tennessee and I run track and field and cross country. Right now I’m studying kinesiology for my undergrad and getting ready to apply for my master’s program in clinical mental health, and so that’ll be a program for the next two years with competing still for the next two years as well. And Gina and I go way back. We were just talking about it before we started recording. We met my junior year of high school when I first started running track and field. And in the process of being an athlete, I’ve always needed a lot of PT and someone told me that she was the best in the business, so that’s when we connected and met and she stayed my PT when I come back into town and when I’m here for the summers. And so that’s when our friendship developed was my junior year of high school and I lived in Colorado now for half of my life. I was born and raised in California and then moved to Colorado 13 years ago. And so it’s definitely home now and I have my family, I have a twin sister, I have two brothers and a mom who live in Colorado as well. We love doing everything sports wise, and my little brother is still playing lacrosse and my sister plays soccer, so it’s a very lively household. I am also a warrior in Christ, and so that’s a beautiful journey in my life as well that I’ve been able to have conversations with Gina about too, in being an athlete and preparing for the collegiate realm of running and competing and trying to stay healthy as much as possible. We’ve had many conversations about how to do that properly and effectively, and so that’s another beautiful aspect of my life.

Dr. Fick: Oh, thank you. Ashley. I think, I don’t even know if you know this, but I remember back probably when you first started running cross country and I was working with the Valor cross country team. I heard about how awesome you were and just your journey and your story. I remember telling a couple of your teammates, I’d love to work with her someday, but I’m sure she has several PTs or great people that she works with. Honestly, it’s been such an honor and privilege to get to work with you as your physical therapist, but it’s been an honor and privilege to get to know you just as a person and to be able to support you throughout the years. And I think one of the things that I really appreciated about my friendship with Ashley is we had a lot of really good conversations and talks as physical therapists. We really bond with our patients some more than others. And Ashley, you were just one of those that always had a very special place in my heart, and you still do, and it’s been an honor and privilege to work with you throughout the years. I had a question for you. What do you see as some of the key as a Division one athlete right now? What do you see as some of the key components to your recovery between workouts or after hard competition?

Ashley: I think that’s been one of the aspects that have kept me healthy for right now, for the time being. I just finished my cross country season for my senior year and over the last 10 months, I would say it’s been the longest stretch that I really haven’t had any injuries. And so that’s a testament to being really proactive about recovery. And so whether it’s after a workout or just after an easy run, you can usually find me in the trainers getting rehab. And one thing that we’ve honed in on a lot this year is making sure my alignment is correct. And so I think that’s for me, my alignment’s kind of already out of whack and it’s just, it can get that way really quickly. Even after a day, we will realign and my hips will be out of alignment or my ankles or whatever that might be, and so quick and easy, but it’s been super effective. And then after races, my body does reel from the race and something little will pop up. But what I tell people too is you don’t wanna wait any longer and push through something so you don’t have something that’s lingering. Because ultimately if something lingers for longer, then you want it to, it’s gonna affect other aspects of your chain as a runner. So if I had some hamstring tightness throughout this cross season and I would address it as much as I could, and with racing, it might have gotten a little bit more irritated. And so it would show itself in like tightness for the patellar too. And so moving down the chain but wanting to address it at the source helped a lot to make sure there wasn’t any further injuries or whatever it might be. So that’s been a huge key in staying healthy.

Dr. Fick: Tell me more about the tools that you use in your recovery process, and what resources do you have there in the training room?

Ashley: Yes, Tennessee, the University of Tennessee, is equipped with amazing resources and they utilize them really well. Our trainer, I’ll shout her out. Her name’s Bethany, she cares for your athletes so well, Gina, she’s the same way where she cares about you more than just as an athlete. It varies with injuries, obviously, and the severity of an injury, but we’ll use ultrasound and stim, like a combination of both for muscle tightness that I might feel, and we’ll do just strengthening exercises too. We work in tandem with strengthening exercises and then whatever resources that you need as far as like ultrasound or stim. We’ll do massages every Wednesday and every Sunday, and then we also have a chiropractor that we work with. That’s been really helpful.

Dr. Fick: Ashley, can you help me understand what the communication process looks like? So at the D one level, if you’ve experienced some pain or what does that communication process look like and how would you advise high school or collegiate or even professional athletes to communicate that to their coaches and medical staff?

Ashley: I think communication’s a huge part of being your own advocate as far as staying in the sport that you want to be in and staying strong and hopefully being injury free. So from my experience at the University of Tennessee, communication has been so great between the trainers, coaches, and the individual athletes. We talk to our trainer who talks to our coach, or we talk to our coach and he talks to the trainer, and there’s no disconnect between any of them. If you’re feeling anything or you are just not having the day that you need to be having, we’re gonna cut it short or we’re gonna modify this workout for today because ultimately it’s playing the long game of wanting to keep you running. We’re not gonna sacrifice one workout so that you sacrifice the rest of your season. And so the communication is great between everyone within the system. And I think we get nervous to talk to the trainer about what’s going on, or we get nervous to talk to coach about what’s going on. ’cause we’re like, oh no, if we talk to our coach or trainer, like they might pull us from workouts, but ultimately I found that they want the best for you and they want to keep you running as well. And so if you’re upfront about that, especially when it’s early on, and it’ll help you to stay healthy longer, and I’m grateful there for everyone communicating with each other, so you have confidence and trust in everyone.

Dr. Fick: I like that. I think it’s really key for athletes to understand that and not be afraid to communicate and talk to their coaches and training staff about what they’re going through. One thing that I noticed, Ashley, as you’ve developed as an elite athlete, is that you worked so hard on your strength conditioning in the off season and even during the season. Can you speak to that and what role that’s had in your performance, but also injury prevention process.

Ashley: Yes. Yes. I think the strength and conditioning part of my experience as a runner has changed over the last couple of years. I was exposed to pretty heavy weight lifting early on in my collegiate experience. And so I’ve experienced heavy lifting, heavy dead lifting, heavy glute bridges, that sort of thing. And then when I was training in Colorado for the summer, we focused on doing mobility exercises and band work. And then throughout the season we’ve focused on band work and hurdle mobility and those things to keep the body healthy and to keep the tendons strong, but to not overdo it so you’re not having to recover from a lift to go into a workout. The priority is running. And then we use band work and lifting to help bring all of those aspects and the pieces together.

Dr. Fick: I’ve seen all the pieces really start to fall into place for you. And that’s exciting because it’s really been a journey of you trying to figure out optimal training loads and volume and how your body’s recovering. You’ve been so meticulous about that process and trying to figure out how recovery should look, what you should do, and your diligence to that process, I think is really why you’re at the level that you’re at right now. And I would love for you to tell us about your journey this year with cross country. Can you tell us about the success that you’ve had that has been an amazing journey for you, and I’m just so proud of you. So tell us about the successes that you’ve had both personally and as a team.

Ashley: Thank you. I do completely agree with you that this season has been unlike any season I’ve ever experienced as far as support and love and comradery, and then the aspect of it all really coming together athletically. Transferring to the University of Tennessee this year, it was a whole new space of I didn’t know anyone yet. And so it was a process of getting to know my coaching staff and all of the girls on the team and then the city of Knoxville and all of those really fun things. And I tell people all the time when they ask how it’s going, just completely overwhelmed in the most amazing ways about how everything’s been such a smooth transition and it’s just grown so much. I love my team tremendously. I love the coaching staff. I love being in Knoxville. Everything has just been amazing.

So starting out getting to know the girls, we had a big group of women and so I think there are 32 women on the distance squad. We got a big recruiting class of freshmen, and what’s so fun is there’s so many people, there’s so many dynamics working with each other and everyone has a friend. We started off preseason, just building comradery with each other and being intentional about getting the workouts done. Our first competition for cross country season was at Furman, and that went really well for the whole team, and that was my first race. I was sitting up in 300 days or something since I had transferred, and it went really well. I got second and we did really well as a team, and so that kind of started the momentum and we talked a lot about it as a team, just building momentum into the postseason. We caught a glimpse of that at pre Nats. The girls placed fifth, and that was at Charlottesville where nationals would be this year. And we had SECs and we placed third at SECs. And then we got first in our region, which was such an amazing race. That was the race where we caught glimpses of, we’ve been focusing on pack racing and really using each other to gauge where we are in the race. And so SECs, we saw a glimpse of that. And then Regions, all of the pieces really came together and it was such an amazing day for all of us. And for the first time since 2004, the Lady Vols qualified for NCAAs. And I’ve never been to NCAAs, and that’s been a dream of mine for many years. So to be able to go to NCAAs this year was amazing. We were ranked 11th going in, and so the goal was to get top 10 as a team. We finished sixth in the nation as a team and two points off from an All American. But what an amazing experience for me individually and then the team. That’s what matters to me most is just how well the team did, and it was a surreal experience to enjoy it together.

I think something that’s been so eye-opening for me this season is what my role is and what my privilege is to really serve this team and to make sure that they feel loved and they feel supported not only on the course, but off of the course. And they’re an easy group to love and to support. It’s been a completely surreal season and shown me things that I’ve never seen before and having the coaching staff pour into me too, to tell me it can be done. And this isn’t out of your realm, this is your range, and we’re gonna really show people and shock a couple people and it’s gonna be really fun. And so I think that’s where I find myself now. We’ll be back for indoor season and it’s gonna be a really good continuation of indoor and then outdoor.

Dr. Fick: It sounds like you have a great coaching staff, a great culture, and a lot of talent on your team. And great leadership and I know that you’ve been able to play a big role in that and I’m just so excited to see where you are now and the journey that you’ve been on, and I think it’s so exciting. It’s not always been easy. What drives you and motivates you as a collegiate track and field athlete and cross country athlete to keep going on the days that you don’t feel like practicing or maybe you’re not sure if you wanna keep doing this, it’s hard being a track and field athlete and cross country athlete at the D one level is extremely hard. Mentally, physically, all aspects. So what’s your daily routine? What drives you? What keeps you going? And how do you do this day in and day out and encourage others as well.

Ashley: I think it’s really important to make sure you check in with the mental aspect of how you’re doing as an athlete, and I think that’s also changed for me over the last couple of years of being super intentional with that. Even when you don’t feel like doing it. It’s just like training. It’s just like recovery. You have to make sure that you’re checking in with how your heart’s doing, with how your soul is doing and how that’s reflecting in your life. Daily. I’m super intentional and I even know on the days where I don’t spend as much time in the word as I need, that I can feel more anxious or I can feel that I don’t have as much peace as I do, but spending time in the word and in prayer is super important for me to be able to do what I do on a daily basis and to know that my purpose is a lot greater than one race, than one practice. And so it’s given me a lot of peace in the midst of really hard workouts or really high pressured races. My routine for this season was to spend time in the word, to be quiet and to listen to the voice of the Lord and write down thoughts of like my intentions for the races. Spending some time in the word right before I race. Being intentional about finding either a scripture or whatever the Lord says, making sure I can engrain it in my mind so that when I am racing I can remember his words and I can know that once I cross the line too. It’s part of who I am, but I’m so much greater than it. There’s so much more purpose outside of just racing, and so I think that’s a huge part of my daily routine.

I think as you said, there’s the team and surrounding yourself with people that really care about you is super important so that they can continuously feed you words of encouragement as well as you feed them words of encouragement and making sure you check in on the people around you and vice versa. That keeps me going because I see my teammates putting in the work and I see the coaching staff sacrificing so much for us, and when you have so many people pouring into you a reflection of your gratitude back when you step onto the line, or even outside of the confines of racing, putting yourself in workouts or making sure you figure out how to serve the team outside of those confines too, whether we were texting in the group message all the time, making sure if people didn’t go to the cafeteria because they had a long class, someone’s grabbing food for them so that we have each other’s back and we’re taking care of each other, and I think that’s super important.

Dr. Fick: That’s amazing. I think what you have found is a really good family of teammates and coaches around you that are instrumental, not only making sure that you’re successful individually, but also as a team. And that’s so cool to see. What do you do on a recovery basis and a daily basis as far as your nutrition? What does that look like? What supplements have you found to be helpful for yourself?

Ashley: Yes, I think that’s a great question. Every morning I start out with athletic greens, and that has been super helpful for my gut health too, because running can be really hard on your gut health, and so I start with athletic greens and then usually have a snack before practice. I’ll have a bar or a banana and then go to practice and making sure I’m fueling and not doing any workout or running on an empty stomach. And then after practice we’ll go to the cafeteria, but making sure that I’m getting for breakfast to go to classes, and then they also have lunch there. So I’ll come back and making sure I’m prioritizing protein and prioritizing fueling well. And then for dinners, I usually make them at home. I love rice bowls like rice, chicken bowls, and pasta with chicken. I have become more creative in making steak this semester, which has been a fun endeavor, but making sure I’m prioritizing protein and helping that to optimize recovery too. And then as far as supplements outside of just making sure I am maintaining a clean diet is I’ll take vitamin C and iron at night and then occasionally I’ll take magnesium with these darker days, making sure I’m taking vitamin D too. But that’s about all of the supplements I take ’cause I do like to prioritize fruits and vegetables within good, healthy protein sources.

Dr. Fick: Fantastic. Can you speak to what your goals are for the future? What does the season look like for you, for indoors and outdoors and on into the future? What are your goals and dreams?

Ashley: I think it’s a great question because when I started this season, I started to build confidence in my training like I’d never built confidence before and in the coaching staff and the team, and so early on I just said, I’ll let my training speak for itself, and I think that’ll ring true through indoor and outdoor and making sure that I stay healthy and consistent. I think consistency will be one of the biggest aspects of being able to maintain what has happened in this cross country season in translating to the track. And so goals for the indoor season are to race the three K and the 5K on the track. I think I’ve run some cross races as fast as I’ve been able to run a 5K on the track. So it’s fun. It’s a new era of fitness that I’ve never felt. So we’re gonna see how the 5K and the three K goes indoor and then I’ll translate those two, the 5K and the 10 K outdoor. And I’m really excited ’cause I’ve always felt a little bit timid about the 10 K, but we do a lot of long threshold work and so I think that’s built my confidence to race a 10 K more effectively and smart. And so I’m really excited for the 5K and the 10 K and the goals are, I’ve never made regionals outdoor for track, and so it’s definitely to make regions and then to continue to be competitive at regions and see what happens. I’m really excited to say the least, but it’s gonna be a great next couple of seasons.

Dr. Fick: I’m so excited to watch you and so excited to see where you go. I think the sky’s a limit for anyone who knows Ashley Jones, she’s very determined, she’s very intentional, and she’s gonna make sure that she achieves those goals, so we have no doubt that you’re going to achieve those. I have a fun question, so if you’re in Colorado, what are some of your favorite places to run your workouts? What do you like to do when you’re home and just experiencing the joy of running?

Ashley: Yes. That was a really fun aspect of this summer was I was home for a couple months and was able to spend time with the family, but then also summer running is so fun because there’s not many confines other than get it done, and so you’re not having to worry about super intense workouts yet and all that stuff. So finding really fun places to run was a fun aspect. So I would go up to Breckenridge and found some really fun spots there. I think one of the crazier runs I’ve done in my life was I went to a trail that I wasn’t super familiar with, but I found it up in Breckenridge. It was 1300 foot elevation gain in eight miles. So that was a run I’ll never forget, but went to Vail and found a really fun trail there along the river. And so when you’re looking at the Rockies and running over the summer, there’s a really fun part of summer training and in going to trails that you normally might not go to or traveling. And went to some fun trails up in Flagstaff too this summer and then in Colorado just enjoying hikes and coffee shops. And anytime I could go to the mountains is definitely where I wanna be. So I’ve found my favorite coffee shops in Breckenridge, and you’ll find me either running all the time in the summer or going to really fun restaurants and built my love for reading too. So just finding pieces of stillness and quiet too to sit down and read and enjoy the day too.

Dr. Fick: I love that. I’m curious if you could look back on the last 10 years of your life. If you could pick one or two people who’ve had the greatest influence, who would those people be and why?

Ashley: I think that’s a beautiful question, and there’s way too many people. I could just narrow it down to two. As I’ve been able to talk through and think through my transition to the University of Tennessee and what my training has looked like and all that stuff, vividly, I can see just the Lord orchestrating specific people to be in my life at specific times and to show me either what can be done or encourage me. But I think I do have to come back to my family just because they’ve always been there and my sister made the crazy drive, I think it was 18 hours to be there for regions. Knowing how important it was for me, she’s continuously been someone that, whether it’s a good day, whether it’s a bad day, whether it’s something new that I’m experiencing and I wanna tell her, she’s always there and we were talking about this last night, how beautiful our friendship, and she knows me sometimes better than I know myself. So that’s a really beautiful friendship that we wanna uphold for years to come. She’s my twin, so that helps because you’ve lived many years together. But I would say her and my mom has just been someone with unwavering faith. Period, but then unwavering faith in my dreams and what I’ve been wanting to do, I have crazy ideas sometimes. And she’s like, all right, what are we doing? How are we doing it? And she made the trip to nationals too. And just being able to experience two moments for me that I don’t think I’ll ever forget because of how this sport has grown in my life. And she got on a small plane to come to Charlottesville and weathered that so that she could be there on that day. And so I would say that my mom and Sydney are just two people in my life that have carried me through so much, and then I can attest it to many coaches, to people like you, Gina, in my life that have seen the potential and just cared for me so well, and so many friends and people that have really sparked the interest and love for the Lord. And it’s just so many people. So many people to thank that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to thank enough, but it’s a good time when I can thank them and tell ’em how grateful I am for them.

Dr. Fick: Fantastic. Last question I have, if you could look back at your younger self in high school before college, what are some of the things that you would tell your younger self that you know now to be true?

Ashley: I think one of the things that I would tell my high school self is to just be patient. And I think we want it now, want it to happen. We want the perfect race. We want it all as quickly as possible. And patience also comes with an enjoyment of the whole process. Knowing that you’re not just stressing out about the race that’s in three weeks or four weeks, but enjoying the time that you have with the people around you until that time comes. One aspect of the team that I love so much is we have so much fun and it’ll be the night before the race and we’re still having fun and we’re being smart about it and stuff like that. But two nights before nationals, we were singing karaoke and it was just like the greatest time. So to be able to enjoy the times in between, whether it’s a race, whether it’s a test, whether it might be to enjoy the process. And that’s something for me this summer that I honed in a lot on of every day, enjoying it, whether it’s ideal or not ideal and to find the times in between and not just let that time pass and you get to the race and whether it goes great or whether it goes poorly, to not be like, oh my gosh, I was stressing for three weeks and lost all of that time and now we’re after the race and I miss talking to the person that I didn’t talk to for three weeks, or, gosh, I lost a little bit of myself in that time. So I would tell the younger self, younger Ashley or any high schoolers or people getting into the collegiate realm of things that patience comes with a lot of space to be able to enjoy the process and to enjoy the evolution of yourself as an athlete too, and what you’re gaining not only physically but emotionally and just learning about the sport. ’cause it is an ever evolving sport and you’re an ever evolving athlete.

Dr. Fick: So love seeing you enjoy the process right now. I think you’re in a really good place and I can’t wait to see what the next year or two brings you. Ashley, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart and to our listeners, thank you just for listening in today. Thank you, Ashley, for joining us on this podcast. You’re an incredible person and I love you very much and I’m super proud of you and I know that our listeners today will gain a lot just from the advice that you’ve been able to share and give, and just look forward to helping you achieve your goals as we go into the future. So appreciate you a lot.

Ashley: Thank you so much. I love you a lot too.