Quick Chat: Tyler Jones

By John Frierson
Staff Writer

Tyler Jones grew up attending Georgia sporting events and cheering for the Bulldogs. When the distance runner got the chance to wear the red and black, there wasn't much of a decision to be made.

A 6-foot-3 senior from the Athens area, he graduated from North Oconee High School, Jones' final cross country season gets underway this weekend at the Charlotte Opener. Jones has a deep appreciation for his collegiate experience, on and off the track and trail, and last week he sat down for a Quick Chat.

During the long, wide-ranging conversation he talked about everything from the life of a distance runner, growing up close to campus, making a cheesecake snickerdoodle bar and so much more. Here's some of what he had to say: 

Frierson: With the cross-country season about to start, what is a typical training day routine?

Jones: It's based around a lot of mileage, so basically Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are going to be our main mileage days, and a lot of us are very high mileage right now, getting up to 100 miles a week. Tuesdays and Thursdays are more workout-based; Mondays and Wednesdays we'll have double practices and then we'll have class, while Tuesday-Thursdays are more workout focused.

All in all, it just leads to a bunch of mileage.

Frierson: What's it like to have to fully embrace, the same way the best swimmers do, that high mileage is just a fact of life?

Jones: You definitely don't get used to it; it gets easier the farther along in training that you get. Every year when you come back (to school) you have to get adjusted to the two-a-days, the time in the weight room and all the other workouts. You get sore every time, I'm sore right now, and you just try to get through those first few weeks.

It will start to mellow out during the third or fourth week (of the preseason), and our first race is (this) weekend, it snuck up on us. It'll come around and we'll start feeling really good, but championship season is in November and that's what we're getting ready for.

Frierson: When I see you guys running in a pack on Milledge or wherever — I was doing a good run the other day and you guys just blew by me like I was standing still — what are you guys talking and laughing about?

Jones: You've got to laugh to hide the pain (laughs). We've gotten to know each other really well these past few years and we're so close, all of us, and we just love to be cracking up and having a good time, especially when we're out there on the trails making conversation. We're talking about anything and we like to have a fun time and make things interesting.

Frierson: If you could be really, really good at any other sport for a day, just to experience what it's like, which sport would it be?

Jones: I tried almost every sport in the book before I settled on running. I must have hit my head pretty hard running through the trees to settle on running because it's a painful sport. I really enjoyed baseball, back in the day when I did it. I think to do that at the highest level, that has a lot of interest for me.

Frierson: Did it turn out that running was what you did best or did you enjoy it more?

Jones: I was good at it, and I liked that part of it, but it was the team atmosphere that really got me with track and cross country. It was unlike any other team I was on before, and I just really fit in with my high school team and I really enjoyed their company and doing that.

It's not about running for yourself — selfish running gets boring — but running for the guy right beside you, that kind of thing, that's what I fell in love with.

Frierson: If you could travel anywhere in the world on someone else's dime, where would you go? And who would you take with you?

Jones: I've been fortunate enough to travel around a little bit here and there with my family; just got back from London, an internship, and that was a fantastic experience with the World Cup going on an all.

A new place that I'd love to go to ... I'd try Italy. I'd love to go to Italy, if it was on someone else's dime. And I'd have to take Jonathan Pelham, my roommate, because I owe him for taking me to the National Championship Game and the SEC Championship this past year for football.

Frierson: What's something that you've tried to get good at but still kind of stink at doing? The example I always give is the guitar which I've never come close to learning how to play.

Jones: I tried to pick it up a few years ago, got one for Christmas actually, a guitar, an acoustic, and I cannot play to save my life. I can't, I've tried to learn. I've heard that people that are good at math are good at musical instruments — well I'm bad at both, and maybe that has something to do with it. ...

I've always wanted to learn how to play an instrument. My sister's good at piano, I'm a little jealous there, but I've just never been able to pick it up. Maybe because all this time is going toward putting miles in on the trail, I don't know.

Frierson: I know you grew up close to Athens and I grew up just a few blocks from here, so were you like me in that you were on campus a lot but you didn't know what any of the buildings were called or what they were for?

Jones: I did. I grew up going to football games and I loved coming over to campus. I was a little hesitant at first because I didn't know if being so close to home (for college) was going to be all right. ... Growing up a Bulldog fan and living so close, I remember when the offer came and it was time to go collegiate, it was hard to say no. This has been a dream school for a long time.

I was a little hesitant at first, but it's a whole different world 15 minutes away — it really is. Campus is its own little world.

Frierson: That leads me to my next question: has the experience of going to Georgia, a place you knew quite well before enrolling, been about what you expected?

Jones: It's been much better than I expected. I would imagine what college would be like back in the day, but the reality has been much, much better, especially being part of this team and seeing that side of it through athletics, and being able to travel and the friends that I've met along the way. It couldn't have been better.

Frierson: I talk to 300-pound football players all the time about what they eat, which is anything and everything put in front of them. What about a long and lean distance runner that burns enough fuel each day for three people?

Jones: I don't know how my answer would compare to a 300-pound lineman but it is nice in a sense that we can basically eat whatever we want. Diet is a big thing, it's important to eat healthy for your sport and to prepare yourself in that way, but growing I could definitely have been better at diet and eating the right way. I could eat a lot of junk food and not gain weight because we could run it off.

I love food and love chowing down when I get the chance. I could eat healthier, I could, I might not all the time, but I need to get those habits in line before I'm done here at Georgia.

Frierson: Is there one thing that you love to eat that you know pretty soon you're going to have to walk away from because you're no longer going to be running 100 miles a week?

Jones: You know what I made the other day? I made something that I haven't had before, it was called a cheesecake snickerdoodle bar. And I tell you what, it was fantastic.

Frierson: I've never heard of that but it's a nice collection of words you just put together.

Jones: A bunch of unhealthy stuff put together in one bar and it was phenomenal. That's probably something I need to not do when I stop running. ... That and sweet tea, I can put down sweet tea like no other. I think it's running through my veins as we speak.

(This Q&A was lightly edited for length and clarity.)

John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.