For more than 140,000<\/a> other women around the world, watching one woman succeed becomes an impetus to follow suit. Jones is a mere microcosm of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cI think that with every athlete coming into ultrarunning, you don\u2019t necessarily know why they\u2019re doing their ultramarathon, why they\u2019re training for it, why they get out to do the long runs that they do. It\u2019s more the story that drives them,” says ultrarunning coach and sports physiologist Lucy Sacarello. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Sacarello, when running 50-plus miles, times and podiums become relative. Instead, troubles became tameable, pasts become inverted. Merely running the race produces a power in itself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“You’re winning if you\u2019re staying out in the trail longer because it\u2019s such a beautiful part of the world. It’s not a competition in the way people think.”<\/p>\n\n\n\nHelen Jones running a few years back with Picco, one of Jones’ three whippets she owes with saving her life. Picco would have been 13 years old this year. CC: Jones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nJones\u2019 story reads like many others. Married in her early 20s, she lived a “rather lazy” life for the subsequent decade: drinking, smoking, eating poorly. Deciding to replace one vice with another, Jones adopted three whippets in 2001, who she now gives credit for saving her life. But at the time, her philosophy was less cathartic: \u201cWhen they\u2019re howling at six in the morning, you can\u2019t do it with a hangover, can you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jones and her whippets began walking. Walking turned into running. Running turned into 5Ks then half-marathons and inevitably the full 26.2 miles. Fourteen years and 20 marathons later, Jones and her then-husband ran their first ultramarathon together. Jungfrau Ultra and a handful more followed. Two years later shortly after Race to the King, Jones\u2019 25-year marriage came to an end. Two of her three whippets passed. Jones found herself adrift at her ostensibly dead end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a long time to be with someone. And when they turn around and say to you they don\u2019t want to be with you anymore, it\u2019s a shock, you know? I lost two of my dogs, my husband decided he didn\u2019t want to\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She pauses. What seems like will be an inevitable sigh turns into a gentle and content chuckle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI swear if it wasn\u2019t for my running, and I know this is quite an enormous statement to make, I don\u2019t think I\u2019d be here. I don\u2019t know what I\u2019d have done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nIt\u2019s being in that one particular moment, in that one particular footstep you\u2019re about to take because if you start dwelling on how far you\u2019ve been or how far you\u2019ve got to go, you\u2019ll mess your head up.”<\/p>\nHelen Jones<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nFalling into a malaise was tempting. Everything Jones had done she had done with another. Instead, Jones woke up every morning to run her only living whippet Ripley. The pair meandered along the beach or around town, Ripley happily harnessed beside Jones for upwards of eight miles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes, they ventured to Colley Woods\u2019 lookout point where Jones scattered the ashes of her two other whippets. No car afforded Jones infinite time on her feet. She ran in the morning, ran to work, ran home, took Ripley out, ran back to work, ran back home and (predictably) enjoyed another run. If she has a trip to the shop or visit to her parents\u2019?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI just go run there,\u201d she says with a laugh. \u201cIt\u2019s the way I live. If you look at my CV it reads back to front. I work so I can live as I want to live, so I\u2019ve got the freedom to run.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nHelen Jones (centre) with friends Helen (left) and Steve (right) as they finish the Race to the Stones 2019.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nWith no cap on distance, Jones began a new lease of life. She found herself snaking the Wales Coastal Path, topping Snowdown. She lounged on the Swiss Alps\u2019 snowy cliffsides, looped Interlaken and trekked the ancient Wiltshire ridgeway. The distance became addicting. How far could she go before she couldn\u2019t? She ran faster, harder, solo or with new-found friends, but most importantly, for herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRunning helps me think things through. It\u2019s made me feel like a stronger, more confident person. It goes back to Race to the King,\u201d she says. \u201cFor about 10 miles I didn\u2019t see anybody. At one point I didn\u2019t even know if I was going the right way \u2013 but I think, it\u2019s seeing that as a sense of adventure, being out in the wild, and sometimes when there\u2019s nobody else about, it\u2019s even better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The last three years came with trials. From near-broken kneecaps flying off Pen y Van, capsizing down a pass in the Snowdon marathon after offering a man salt tablets (\u201cI still finished third in my age group!\u201d) or taking an elbow to the neck from a male racer. And while she won’t tell you exactly what she said to him (“it was not polite”), she’s not the sort of woman who will back down anymore. There\u2019s a particular strength, she says, that comes from attempting any of these herculean slogs and finding oneself herculean enough to conquer them. The falls and elbows merely add to her plucky panache.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe whole thing about ultras is not to think about how far you\u2019ve run or how far you\u2019ve got to run. It\u2019s being in that one particular moment, in that one particular footstep you\u2019re about to take because if you start dwelling on how far you\u2019ve been or how far you\u2019ve got to go, you\u2019ll mess your head up.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\nHelen Jones standing at the start of the Eiger Ultra Trail 2018. CC: Jones. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nIt\u2019s partly a testament to the trails: what happens on them inevitably translates off. Each race is, as Zakrzrewski attests, as predictable and personal as life itself:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“In ultras, it is so much that you can\u2019t affect somebody else\u2019s race, but you can lose your own by trying to race somebody else’s,” Zakrzewski says. “You\u2019ve got to just do what you can do and ignore everybody else. You can’t control it, but that’s the beauty of it.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nWhen I look at myself and the stuff that I do, the training, running and everything I\u2019ve got planned, I think I never would even in my mid-20s have thought I would do anything like this. It\u2019s almost like I\u2019m a completely different person”<\/p>\nHelen Jones<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nFor many like Jones, a greater testament arises from visibly watching the successes of women like Zakrzewski in ultrarunning\u2019s upper echelons. The Race to the King was one of those rare moments (becoming less so) where a woman triumphed. Jones\u2019 story, like so many others, won\u2019t end in lifting a trophy far above her head, but Zakrzewski\u2019s success digs far deeper than silverware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think women should look at other women and think right, I can do this,\u201d Jones says. \u201cWhen your life sort of crumbles and you don\u2019t think you\u2019re ever going to be the same again\u2026Women have got to see there\u2019s so much strength in a woman, isn\u2019t there?”<\/p>\n\n\n\nHelen Jones and Ripley running on the beach Christmas 2019. “There is nothing better than an empty beach, running with my dogs.” CC: Jones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nClosing on her third solo year, this year in particular was meant to be Jones\u2019. Amongst her litany of scheduled races, Jones planned her seventh London Marathon, the Cottrell\u2019s Way, the Eiger Ultra Trail, Snowdonia Marathon and the Jungfrau Ultra, this time entirely on her own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, her plans like many others have been provisionally freezer stored. And while for some time the hiatus felt nearly boding, Jones remembers where she started. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen I look at myself and the stuff that I do, the training, running and everything I\u2019ve got planned, I think I never would even in my mid-20s have thought I would do anything like this. It\u2019s almost like I\u2019m a completely different person,\u201d Jones says. So while this year was meant to be a year she did her, it merely means maybe next year she’ll check off the 100-miler. Meanwhile, she’s quite happy where she is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI just hope I can keep on running.\u201d She takes a deep, thoughtful breath, then lets a small chuckle escape. \u201cAs long as my knees hold out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/life360\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2020\/07\/HelenJonesFeatureImage-1.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/life360\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2020\/07\/HelenandFirstWhippet.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/life360\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2020\/07\/HelenwithFriends-1-1024x576.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/life360\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2020\/07\/EigerUltraHelenJones.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/life360\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2020\/07\/HelenandRipley-1024x576.jpg\")