Even casual sports fans have likely heard the name Lolo Jones over the last three months. The decorated 29-year-old hurdler—who famously led the 100-meter final in the 2008 Olympics before hitting the second-to-last barrier, finishing seventh, and collapsing to the ground in disappointment—made headlines after a revealing interview on HBO: Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel. Some of the topics of covered? Her impoverished childhood, her skill at stealing frozen dinners, and her decision to remain a virgin until marriage.
Though Jones had revealed that last fact months earlier on Twitter, the interview quickly made her a newsmaker. Bloggers were tripping over themselves to suggest that she connect with New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow, who's also reportedly a virgin, and become the newest "It" couple in sports. Her Twitter followers ballooned to 180,000, making her the most followed athlete on the U.S. track team.
Some critics said Jones—who's slowly been returning to form following spinal surgery last year—wouldn't live up to the increasing media hype. The fact that she earned the final spot on the London squad in June by just four-hundredths of a second suggested to her detractors that she's not at the top of her game and that she'd have difficulty besting teammates Dawn Harper and Kellie Wells and Australian Sally Pearson, the favorite to win.
Jones has indeed been on a bumpy road since Beijing, experiencing exhilarating highs (becoming the first woman ever to win consecutive world indoor titles and setting the American record in the process) and crushing lows (failing to make the finals at both the 2009 or 2011 national championships). Many people who've heard Jones' story will be rooting for her to make a golden comeback in London. After all, who doesn't like an underdog?
Women's Health talked with Jones about her training and what an Olympic medal would mean to her. Here's Lolo Jones in her own words.
Tell me a little about your living situation growing up.
I moved around quite a bit. My mom was raising five kids and we were very poor. She worked two jobs to make sure she could provide for us but sometimes that wasn't even enough. At one point, she couldn't find a place for us to live so we were living in a church basement. Those things have definitely helped me because I move around quite a bit for my job and I have to meet people from different countries and I have to adapt quite quickly, so that's the good thing about it.
In high school, my mom wanted to move to a small town and I was already getting recruitment letters from colleges across the country, so I decided to stay behind. I lived with four different families so that I could stay at the same high school.
In your hardest training phase, you did three workouts a day. What are they?
Usually it's a track workout followed by weights, and then I rest, and then I do a pool workout, then I rest, then I come back later and either do Pilates or yoga. If my track workout is really hard, then my pool workout has to be very minimal because you don't want to overtrain.
Are you doing yoga in classes or with a DVD?
The third one you're forgetting is YouTube. I've done DVDs and I've done classes but because I travel so much and I do them so much, I really need a good variety. And I found YouTube is just the best for having a wealth of Pilates and yoga. I've been doing it for a year and a half now.
My favorite one right now is POP Pilates [with Pilates instructor Cassey Ho of Blogilates.com]. It's with this cute Asian girl, and she's full of energy. Her Pilates booty [workouts] are so hard.
What are you doing in the pool?
I use a kickboard and do butterfly kicks, and kind of donkey kicks. And I do a lot of drills: A skips, B skips, high knees, butt kicks, those are really good in the pool. I have a full-body aqua float suit and it helps keep me elevated when I jog in the deep end and it allows me to get a good workout in.
If you're doing like 10 mile-runs or you're sprinting a lot, you should be doing the pool at least once a week. It really does take the pressure off your body and you feel better once you get out of it.
Are you training differently than in 2008?
I never did yoga or pool workouts in 2008. I definitely am stronger and I'm not as fatigued in the running I do because the cardio in the pool is just killer.
How do you fuel your workouts?
For breakfast, I usually eat egg whites and oatmeal with fruit. Lunch is a chicken or turkey sandwich on whole-wheat pita bread with hummus, tomatoes, and spinach. I have a protein shake with fruit after one of my workouts. Dinner is chicken, fish, or steak and veggies.
What about treats?
There's one day a week where I have a cheat day where I have dessert. But I do eat chocolate on a regular basis. I'm usually pretty stressed after doing three workouts a day so I have a little piece of dark chocolate as my treat.
You tweeted a picture of a foam roller with knobs all over it called the RumbleRoller. Is that like the next level in foam rolling?
A lot of runners have a foam roller, which is great. And they're like "oh, this foam roller is killing me." But I promise you, once you get a RumbleRoller, it's like a different ball game. You're not going to go back to your foam roller because it's not going to do anything for you. It's like trigger point therapy, if you've ever had A.R.T. [Active Release Technique]. The thing is amazing. The RumbleRoller is probably my best-kept secret.
Last August, you had surgery to fix a spinal condition that left you unable to feel your feet. How did your recovery go?
Yes, one year out from the Olympics. I took one month completely off and then I had a month of getting back into the groove of things. We usually take a month off after our season anyway and normally after a month off, I just go back and hammer it. This time after a month off, my goal was to start walking.
Every day, [walking to the end of my driveway] was my goal. And I was like, Are you kidding me? I can't even walk to the end of my driveway and in less than a year I'm going have to be the fastest person in the world. And not only the fastest in the world, but the fastest jumping over things. I felt like I wasn't going to get in shape in time and so I was a little paranoid.
And then you won your comeback race in January, the 2012 U.S. Open.
Yes. Every race I ran indoors, I won. I was surprised because I was lining up with the Olympic champion and people who had world championship medals from last year. It was really nice to know that all the training and working through my spinal issues was worth it.
What would an Olympic medal mean to you?
For me, the medal would mean so much because I've experienced so many lows in this track career. I've had a good career—I'm the indoor record-holder, I have World Championship medals—but there's nothing like an Olympic medal. It's what we dream of, it's what we fight hard for and it's just really cool to say you're the Olympic champion. It's so much more than words could explain.
What comes after London?
My whole goal is 2016 would be my last Olympics.
One day I'll do a marathon. I'll probably do the New City York Marathon because it's sponsored by Asics [one of her sponsors] and I'd be able to get in even if I didn't have a really good time!
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