May 12, 2025 • 39 mins
You can call it a comeback!Olympic athlete Marion Jones runs through the highs and lows of her headline-worthy career.From her complicated childhood, to her passion for sports, to the day she found herself face-to-face with federal investigators! Hear how ONE mistake led to a prison sentence and more than a month in solitary confinement.
Plus, Marion reminds us that life is not a sprint, it's a marathon and we are meant to keep on running. So lace up, pace yourself, and listen now for tips on finding your second wind!!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Let's be clear, who's Shannon Doherty.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hi, let's be clear listeners. I'm Mary Jones, and you
might know me as a former track and field athlete,
or maybe you know me from my time playing in
the WNBA or college basketball, or maybe even most recently,
you may see me compete on the Hits show Special Courses.
And I'm so honored to be here hosting this episode
(00:28):
of Cannon Dougherty's podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I know I've become a special gathering place for her.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Fans, as well as a positive space where folks can
share their stories and their lessons that they've learned along
the way. So I'm excited to share my journey with
you all today and I hope that maybe just a
little bit of it resonates with you today in a
very special way. So I thought I would start out
by telling you all just a little bit about the
highs and lows of my career. I am a California native.
(00:56):
I was born and grew up in the Los Angeles area,
and my mother and I knew at a very young
age that I was just really blessed with an incredible
amount of talent. I have one older brother, and I
like to joke and say that when your older brother
picks you his younger sister to play on his neighborhood team,
(01:18):
you know that there's something very unique about you.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
And that was the case with me.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I started participating in all kinds of sport and excelled
in all of them. I was also at that time
figuring out life my mom. My mom and my father
biological father were divorced when I was three years old,
and my mom became a single parent. Thankfully, she found
love again and I had an amazing stepfather. So I
(01:46):
had that really warm, loving family until my stepfather passed
away at the age of nine years old. And that
time that I share with you is very pivotal in
my life and in my career because in nineteen eighty four,
I happened to be nine years old, and that was
the summer that the Olympic Games came to Los Angeles,
(02:07):
the city that I was living in, and my mother
took me to the Olympic Parade where all of the
athletes are paraded down the street. That summer, I sat
in front of my television and for the first time
I watched in amazement as the athlete across the Finch line,
and many of them won Olympic gold and I made
the decision, but this is what I wanted to do
(02:29):
with my life. I wanted to achieve success. I wanted
to win gold medals, I wanted to run and I
just I wanted that to be me. And everything from
that point on in my life revolved around that goal,
to the point I even wrote on my chalkboard that
I wanted to be an Olympic champion. Fast forward a
(02:50):
few years. It was just going through a very difficult.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Time in my life. I was an adolescent.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
My mom was working very hard to support my older
brother and I and I was just going through it
with my emotions, not understanding why I had a biological
father who just really.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Didn't want to be in my life.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
And I think a lot of people even listening for
this kind of understand that where maybe you don't have
somebody in your family who is you know, it's supposed
to be supportive, and for whatever reason, they choose they're not.
And so I gave it to my mom. As we
like to say, I was rebellious. I lashed out. I
(03:31):
was one of those adolescents where when your parent asked you,
how are you doing, honey, I would respond with, I'm
fine that you all know what I'm seeing what I say,
I'm fine. That was me, and now, as a parent
of an actual fifteen year old who gets a lot
of those I'm fine, mom, I absolutely understand how difficult
(03:51):
it is to parents, especially at that time when you're
the only parent.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Thankfully, though, for me, I had an outlet.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
My outlet was sport, and as I shared earlier, my
mom and I knew that there was something unique about me. Faster,
I was stronger. I loved it.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
I was passionate about it.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I think a lot of young people at that age twelve, thirteen,
fourteen through high school, they want to be on the
social scene. I, on the other hand, was waiting by
the door with my backpack and shoes and equipment, and
waiting on my mom so that I wouldn't be late
for Prictice. So that gave you a little idea of
the mindset that I had even at that young age.
(04:36):
All of that got you to the age at fifteen
years old where I was blessed enough to make my
first Olympic team. The team that the USA team that
summer was traveling to Soul, Korea, I decided that I
would hold off even though I made the team, I
would pull off on pursuing my Olympic dream and my
(04:57):
Olympic journey because I really didn't think that it was
going to be the right time. So I decided to
stay and continue to hone all of my athletics hills,
particularly basketball at that time. A few years later, I
decided to accept a basketball scholarship to the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I was going to
(05:18):
be a dual sport athlete. So I traveled across the
country from California to North Carolina to start this incredible
athletic and academic journey in Chapel Hill.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
So at this point, I've.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Shared some highs, I've shared some lows when it comes
to relationships, but it was all just the beginning. I
had the opportunity to be on a women's basketball team
at the University of North Carolina that in my freshman
year nineteen ninety three, we won the national championship. And
(05:52):
of course there's so much.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
In the news right now about women's basketball and March Madness,
and I just feel feel very fortunate to have been
on a team of women where we can experience winning
it all.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
It happened to be on the last second shot. So
if you're looking for something to.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Do after hearing this podcast, type in nineteen ninety three,
nineteen ninety four buzzer Beater Women's National Championship and you'll
see Mike tar Hills winning it all.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Certainly a highlight in my life.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Decided that I loved the sport, was going to continue
dabbled in track and field while I was at the
University of North Carolina and four years was really decided
that I wanted to for all of my attention into
my first love, which.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Was track and field. I graduated from the University of
North Calnon.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Nineteen ninety seven and quickly began the trajectory of my
track and field career.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
It happened very quickly, as in about eighteen.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Months, I became arguably one of the fastest women in
the world, became a world champion at that time, and
things in my life were fairly well, apparently going fairly well.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
In nineteen ninety eight, I.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Was traveling around the world competing because, as you might
know listening to this, many of the track and field
athletes in the US have to travel abroad in between
the years of the Olympic Games. Of course, the Olympic
Games are every four years, and these athletes have.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
To spend a majority of their.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Time traveling in Europe and Africa and South and Central
America literally for a living to run these big races.
And so in nineteen ninety eight, I was at a
press conference in Bruckels, Belgium, and a reporter asked me, Marion,
you know, what are your plans for the near future,
particularly the two thousand Games in Sydney. And I don't
(07:52):
know my exact age, but I was early twenties, mid twenties,
and I flippantly answered, just like any twenty year old,
I flippantly answered, I planned to compete in five events
in Sydney, and I planned to win.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Five events, so five golds.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And I said that, and I stayed flippantly because unbeknownst
to me, it had never been done before. So that's
press conference was the catalyst to the world and Hi, hey,
there's this young athlete, incredible and he wants to achieve
history in Sydney. And that kind of took on a
(08:30):
wave and a momentum of its own, whereby the lead
up to the Olympic Games. I was the poster child
for the Olympics. So I was on the cover of
every major magazine from Vogue to Sports Illustrated to.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
Ebony, to Time to Life, and I was that athlete
going into the Sydney Olympics. I went to Sydney achieved
a lot of success.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
I won five medals, three of them gold two of them,
and left Sydney on the most incredible there was len
We get a little bit of context to you all.
During that time in two thousand till about two and ten,
and about a ten year span.
Speaker 6 (09:16):
There had did a lot a lot of news about
athletes and performance enhancing drugs and trying to get a
handle of that in the sport. Well, I've always been
a proponent, proponent for a drug free sport.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
But because I was an elite athlete, I needed to
make sure that any type of vitamin, any type of
supplement that I was taking was going to be free
from any other substances.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
So I hired a company to create the supplement for
me right, and I also had a team around, a
manager and coach it is, and everybody to protect my
best interest, or so I thought. So again achieved a
lot of success in Sydney.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
A few years later, two thousand and three, I get
a phone call from federal prosecutors asking me inviting me,
I say that, loosely, inviting me to come and sit
with them in San Francisco and share any knowledge so
that I might have known about performance handing drugs during
that time, a particular company that was creating them. And
(10:24):
I just quickly said, sure, I don't have any problem.
I don't have anything to hide. Understand that during that
time I was also the most tested athlete in the world,
meeting every few weeks, somebody would come to my home
and I would have to go to the bathroom and urine.
They would text my urine to make sure there were
no performance to handing drugs, and every single time it
(10:46):
was negative.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
So I had nothing to hide. I had hired this company.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I felt very confident that they knew there was nothing
tainted in it at all.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
So I traveled to In two thousand and three, I
traveled to San Francisco with my attorneys and prior to
the meeting, I sat down with federal investigators and signed
what it's called a clean for a day letter, and
if you've never heard of that.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
What it is essentially is you sign this document saying
that you will be honest with the federal prosecutors that
no matter what they asked you, no matter how brutal,
no matter what you've done, if you tell the truth,
they will not prosecute you. Right So, because I went
into this meeting with absolutely nothing too high, I signed
(11:31):
a letter. Very quickly, my attorney looked it over. Everything
was fine. We go into the interview with the federal
prosecutors and very quickly we determined that they felt that
I knew a lot more than what I was sharing
with them, and their questions became a little more intense
and aggressive, to the point about three hours into this
(11:53):
interview they pulled something out of the bag and they
kind of push it towards me, and I quickly realized
in a very short amount of time, I couldn't realize
that there was something that had been given to me
years prior, right before the Olympic Games, by the team
that I had hired, and it's something that I had
taken with the the size of it being something else.
(12:16):
So in that moment, I knew that everything that I
had heard about in the news about these athletes and
performance enhancing drugs, and this particular one called but Clear
was indeed what I was looking at and was indeed
actually something that I had been given. So in that
short amount of time, I made the decision to lie
for fear that everything I had dreamt of, everything I
(12:39):
had worked towards my entire career leading up from nineteen
eighty four when I was nine years old and wrote
I wanted to be an Olympic Champion on my talkboard
to that moment. I feared that if I was to
tell them the truth, that everything that I had worked
for would be taken away, And so I made the
decision to lie. In that moment. Of people when they
(13:00):
hear my story, they say, oh, you know Mary Jones,
she lost it all, or she went.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
To prison because she took performance enhancing drugs.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
That's not accurate. I actually went to prison, and we'll
get to that. Because I had signed that Queen for
a Day letter and because I lied to them, they
were able to come back a number of years later
and try me, and I was found guilty, of course.
But so of course there are a lot of high
and loans to all of that. Fast forward from two
(13:30):
thousand and three to two thousand and seven. I had
been carrying this heavy burden with me for quite some time,
four plus years. A lot had happened in that four years,
in that I had my two sons, I was still competing,
I was still running fast and being considered the fastest
women in the world. But the burden of this life
(13:53):
every single time I raced, every interview would ask are
you a drug free athlete? Do you take right? Just
became heavy.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
But the heaviest part of it all.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
And many people listening to this will understand this that
when you have since, your perspective in life most times
drastically changes and you realize that everything that you say
and everything that you don't say, everything that you do
and sometimes don't do, can and will affect them. And
(14:24):
I was telling my boys, hey, you know, when you
make a poor choice, and it happens in life to everybody,
but when it happens to you, son, like, you need
to come back and you need to tell mom and
we'll deal with the consequences and then we can move
on and be done with it. And I certainly wasn't
living that life. I was quite the hypocrite at that time,
(14:45):
and it just became too much, and I said to myself,
you know what, like like I need a fresh start.
I need to just make this right. And I know
the consequences would be severe. Didn't know they.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Would be as severe as they were.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
And so in two thousand and seven, I've led guilty
to applying to the federal investigators and was sentenced to
six months incarceration. The only athletes that had served any
time in all of that. So, of course that's the
low and probably the lowest point in my career where
the forty nine days spent in solitary confinement. But I
(15:23):
also tell people in all of that, like, I'm not
looking for empathy or sympathy. I certainly made four choices.
But I also say during that time it was a
blessing in disguise because it forced me to analyze my past,
who I was, and more importantly figure out, all, right, well,
what's the next step, what's my tomorrow look like, what's
(15:45):
my next year, what's my five year outlooks look like?
But also I like to say that it forced me
to slow down. Right, there was so much pressure, there
was so much same and fortune as a twenty something
year old that can be enormously overwhelming, and the time
(16:07):
away was really just an opportunity for me to slow
down and to also realize that I had allowed my
sport of choice, track and field, to dominate my life.
Like when people ask me Mary Jones, who are you
back then, my quick response to be, I'm attracting cial
(16:29):
athletes right, which I think a lot of young athletes
get go down that road whereby they identify by who
they are with what they do, and that causes a
lot of problems, particularly towards the end of your career.
(17:00):
So that was the lowest point of my life. I
will tell you that the highlights, of course was winning
the gold medal, but more so the biggest highlight is
now I have three kids twenty one, seventeen, and fifteen,
and I'm proud to say that I am probably the
most joyful and happiest that I've ever been in my life.
(17:22):
I have created such an incredible business around sharing this
idea with people that their failure in life does not
have to be forever that no matter who you are. Yes,
I understand people don't have the incredible life story potentially
that I do.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
It's not all it's to be so to take that
in your account.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
But everybody from all walks of life have some type
of failure that they deal with. It could be a
business that has failed, your finances, your relationship, whatever it is, right,
everybody has been knocked down and everybody needs to learn
tools on how to pick yourself back up and that success,
(18:08):
whatever you identify success as, can be had again and
maybe even more so if you know the right tools right.
So what I share with people is that, hey, you
need a living example of somebody to look forwards that yeah,
they've had so much success, they've lost it all for
various reasons, and they are on the comeback of sport too.
(18:29):
Not I make it identical in terms of the height
of my success, but for me, success and now looks
like people realizing that they are strong, that they can
overcome anything, that their setbacks in life do not have
to define them, that their mistakes don't have to be
their narrative for the rest of their life.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
And that's what I hope to do.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
So that's actually the high of my career and where
I'm at right now, I'm not such a wonderful feeling.
So I share some of the challenges that I faced
that changed me as a person, certainly as an athlete.
I would say that that the challenges of surrounding what
are the challenges that I faced was that I made
(19:13):
the decision to surround myself during that time with what
I call yes people, right. And these are people whom
you make a decision that they're gonna be your community.
They're your people, and they're gonna stay and do anything
that you want them to do, right, and usually it's
(19:35):
for reasons that would benefit them, not too These are
people that if you're making poor decisions, they're gonna say, oh,
I don't have to get a good idea or even
something simple like that output on you. And I made
make a choice during my twice right to surround myself
(19:56):
with people who would just say, Mary, I think that's
a great idea, instead of surrounding myself with people who
would give it to me straight. What do I mean
by that? These are people most likely your parents, right,
not every case, but people who've known you for a
significant amount of time or know you really well, and
who are not afraid to just say, hey, married, maybe
(20:19):
you should rethink that, or hey Mary, maybe you should
look at it from this angle, and so I think
in regard to how I've changed as a person now,
I certainly identify the need to have a strong, strong
community around me that pours into me in a healthy way. Right.
The people that I surround myself now certainly are not
(20:41):
get people. These are people that love me for who
I am, right and are willing to say the hard
things to help me navigate this thing called life. And
I am so very grateful for them in my life.
I want to tell you all why it's so important
I said to surround yourself with the right team, because
(21:04):
if you go through life thinking that it's it's going
to be what social media looks like. Because that's the
big thing right now, Everything on social media is it's beautiful,
general and pretty, and everybody wants to portray their life
as something magical, which we know is not active. Right.
(21:25):
There are moments in life that are, but many thingses
there are at people moments that are not. And I
think people just kind of get stop thinking that's the
way it is, and that there will be no picked
upsk in life. And it's so sad that young people
in particular see this example every day as they scroll Instagram,
(21:48):
tick pout, Facebook, whatever it looks like, whatever social media platform,
and that's what they see all the time. And so again,
surrounding yourself with reality, right they're on yourself with people
who will keep it real is so important, I believe
in our lives. So I also want to share with
(22:10):
you. You know, there was a time when, of course I
surrounded myself with I'm not going to take the wrong people.
They just weren't the right people for me, right, And
that led to obviously a lot of disappointment, uh.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
And just a lot of feeling of hanging there.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
You put like there are a lot of wood haves
and puttos right, and then you could have been X,
Y and Z, or you could have achieved this right.
And I don't really allow myself to go there very
often because it's hard to pull yourself out of that place.
People see particularly now on social media and on interviews
(22:48):
or whatnot, and it looks like one percent I've always
had it together. That's not the case. There are good days,
there are bad days. But now I just learned how
to hope with it all.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
So I want to pivot a little bit.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
We've talked about from UPSTI downs in my life. But
I know a lot of my listeners and followers and
people who watch the Legs Clear podcast just want to
know what it takes to be a disciplined elite athlete
and how people can embrace that discipline in all areas
of their life. And I love to speak on that
(23:26):
because currently what I do. In addition to being on
shows like Speciful Forces, I also am so blessed to
have started my own podcasts with my business partners tou
Van Evans called Second Wind, where we have the opportunity
to sit down with guests from all walks of life
(23:48):
who we believe are on their second wind in life.
They keep achieve some type of success, have hit the roadblock,
people have written them off and all of a sudden
but whatever different reason, they've been able to come back
and it's cake. You know, you'll find that a lot
of companies love to hire former athletes, former champions, and
(24:12):
the reason is very simple.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Is because to be a success, you really in.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Sport, you have to have self discipline. You have to
have figured out the formula to wake up in the
morning when you're tired, or when you're hurt, or when
you're sick, or when you're like, you have social pressure
pulling you away, right, you have to have a certain
(24:38):
discipline to say, you know what, this is my goal
and I'm going to sacrifice everything else for that goal.
So well, that's why you see these Fortune five hundred
companies like when they look at their list of potential candidates,
they're generally lean towards the side of hiring former college
athletes because they know that in the ground, in the
(25:00):
thick of it, these people will get the job done.
For me, I have always been self driven, self motivated.
I had some wonderful coaches and mentors along the way
in my life that I've just been fortunate. I had
(25:21):
some that were horrible. To be honest with you, it
didn't really make a difference for me because I knew
what for me the end game was. The end game
for me was to be a success.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
The endgame for me was to make my mother proud.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
And people sometimes will say, well, Mary, you messed all
day up, and I will quickly respond and say, you
think I have the one person who was there for
me when all of that negative stuff happened on the
courtroom steps after I played guilty. My mom's hand is
(25:57):
on my shoulder and she's tapping my shoulder rubbing. I
told her, and she's my biggest.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Supporter, saying, I love you, everything will be okay. I
believe in you.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
I believe in this next chapter for you. They're gonna
be amazing. And so there's nothing that anybody says on
social media anywhere that can make me believe otherwise. I've
just been grateful for that support for my mother and
just seeing her and all the sacrifices that she has
(26:29):
made in her life has told with the discipline that
I was speaking of earlier, Right, Like, my mom came
here from a small, beautiful country by the name of Believe.
She came here very young, wanting a better life for
herself and for her kids, and she sacrificed time away
(26:50):
from family. She sacrificed so much for a better life
for her kids. And people say, oh, it would be
so difficult to be an elite athlete, so difficult to
do this, And I'll tell you this. I'll say, No,
what's difficult. It's coming to a new country, right leaving
your family behind, having a young child, not knowing what
(27:11):
the future would look like, and waking up every day
with this desire that no matter what, you're going to
make a better life for your kids, like don't is
that is sacrifice? And so when people ask me that,
I just kind of sit back and I say, I like,
you have no idea, right, It might look like, yeah,
(27:32):
the athlete a lot of success, and yes it is.
But then when you have gotten a chance to witness
through greatness and I have with my mom, everything else
is much more simpler. Let's move a little bit more
to like like's talking about fitness and the body, which
I love. I am a certified personal trainer. I have
(27:54):
such a passion for healthy living and for helping people
live longer, happier, healthier lives. Over a decade ago I
got my certification and training people virtually the proper technique
on how to stay fit and run and lift and
all that. And I want to share with you how
(28:16):
I've been able to connect the body, you know, and
as it's older, I will be fifty years old October
of this year, and it's it's.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
It's amazing me to even say.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
That that I've been on this planet for fifty years
and the incredible life that I've been given. But naturally,
at this age you start to see cases in your body.
I start to see aches and pains and things that
I never knew existed. But I have found with a
good nutrition and with a consistent movement pattern, meaning yeah,
(28:54):
I work out every day, full struggle. I have great
four art writings who both needs. You know, I struggle
with certain things. I don't nearly run it. I don't
run nearly as fast as I used to or jump
that side. But every single day of my life there
is some movement right. It's a non negotiable. I share
this with my clients often. Movement every day is a
(29:15):
non negotiable. Good eating right, making sure at this age
protein is everything, particularly for premenopausal and menopausal women. Making
sure that you get the proper amount of protein, healthy water, intake,
good sleep, relieving stress and so to me, just making
(29:36):
sure that is a priority in my life as I
age is so very important. I decided a few.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Years fact that.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
I would notice a good amount of my friends who
are my age. I would see them getting heavier, I
would see them stressed out. I would see them dealing
with work and relationships and just really struggling overall in
their life. And I was been having those struggles and
I decided number of years fact that.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Making a decision to one plunging thing every.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Year of my life, something that's going to get me
out of my comfort zone, I think is the recipe
for a long and healthy life. So this year I
made the decision that I was going to attempt to
compete in my first triathlon. I had had an affinity
for the sport for many years, lots of respect for
these athletes who have to commit so much of their
(30:49):
time to perfecting three different disciplines or really four if
you consider nutrition as one cycling, biking, swimming, good nutrition.
And I decided that I wanted to compete this year
and see what I can do. And I've taken that
on and he has taken over my life. But I'm
excited to say that in about one month time, I
(31:10):
will be competing in Honolulu in a triathlon. And really,
what it.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Has taught me at this stage of my life.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Is an endurance component that I have been unfamiliar with,
particularly because in my prime, endurance was not the thing
right I was intended. I was chosen to run fast
from here to there, very fast, not around around, around,
(31:39):
around me tract lots of times and so taking on
a sport where endurance is everything. You can't go out
too hard, you can't go out too fast. You have
to learn and hate that you can maintain at a
high level for an extended period of time. It's such
a challenge for me participating in disciplines that I didn't
have a background. The pop swimming, I knew how to swim,
(32:04):
but the swimming that I did was hey, with my friends,
I'm jumping off the diving board and getting over to
the side, or with my kids making sure that they
don't drownd, nor do I.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
I've never really swam left from.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Here to there. I learned proper technique and that is
mind blowing, especially learning to do that as an adult.
So that is the first challenge, the swimming component. The
second challenge was the fipling component. Did I know how
to ride my bike? Sure, my little Puffy and if
you're a third age you know all about puffy. I
(32:37):
could ride that around the block, or I can ride
that fast. But it had been a number of years
before I had really been on a bike for a
good amount of time, and there is a skill set
associating with that that I did not have that I
had had to learn. And then, of course the third
discipline is the running component, and most people hearing from
me might say, oh, that portion he must have down packs.
(33:00):
Got agatn't? I can run? Used to run fast from
here to there right short distance, but to have to
run a five k or further was mentally exhausting in
addition to physically exactly so.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Having to train my body for that.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
It has forced me to learn balance in my life
because I when I competed at the highest.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Level, like that was all that.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
I was supposed to do. Train At this point in
my life, It's not all I supposed to do. I
have a family, I have a business that need as
much science as my training. So learning balance in my
life and not allowing it to overwhelm me, not allowing
it to start to define again who I am and
(33:45):
want to be, has been the challenge. But it has
taught me so many new things about myself and whom
I want to be as a person, a mother, a partner,
an athlete, and I do things that I didn't even realize.
So that is my journey on triathlon. Every year from
this point out, I plan.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
To choose something new, something that.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
I a new skill, set a new challenge, something that
I've never done before, and I'm just so excited to
have discovered that and the need for that really in
my life. So with all of that, you know, my
kids have watched me transform and through all of this
(34:29):
all along with them. My mom, I've always just been
mom for them. It's funny. They know about my success
in sport, they also know about my challenges in life.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
But at the end of the day, I'm his mom.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
If you're listening to this, you know about that that
As long as I have their cash app and their
Venmo and I'm the mama Uber, they're perfectly happy. But
people always ask me why I made certain choices to
come back onto the scene, why I even decided to
play professional basketball I had after I had been released
(35:05):
from prison, And I tell them it's this simple fit,
simple equations for me. My kids, particularly with social media
and the internet, like they even if I made a
choice not to.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Tell them about what I did in my past.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
They would know. I certainly wanted to be able to
explain things to them how they understand which I've done right.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
But also as they get older and they have their
own families and they many dive.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
In deeper into their mom's life. I wanted them to
be able to follow the trajectory of my life and
my career and see certain things that were important to me.
One sure, had a childhood and an adolescence whereby I
learned to love spork, found out I was very good
(35:56):
at it, achieved some hues dry and successes in sport,
Olympic champion, all of that. Along the way on this timeline,
Mom made some poor choices, right, lost it all right,
had to figure out how to refrain whom she was,
how to figure out what is she going to do
(36:17):
with her world and with her life, and to build
her reputation back. And again they're following this timeline and notice,
oh yeah, you know she had come back from it all.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
You know, She's had the opportunity to share.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Her story with the world with the hope that people
can make better choices for their own lives and the
fact that I can be a living example to them,
and even once I'm gone from this world, they can
share with their kids and their families like this is
(36:51):
this is what real life looks like, if not what
you see on social media. Always right, this is what
real life looks like you have to set them time.
Sometimes you make a wrong whom you make a wrong call.
Sometimes something knock you down. Maybe it's a death in
your family, Maybe it's a divorce. Maybe it's something you've
done and not git down right, and you do not
(37:13):
know how you're gonna take another step, and you figure
it out, You repray, You create your own legacy, you
create your own narrative, and you pull yourself out of
that dark place, and all of a sudden you find
yourself knocking on the doors and then actually being opened
for you whatever that looks like the next season of
(37:34):
your life. And and for me, I can sit back
and say, Okay, a life well lived because my kids
can identify and see the timeline and say, you know what,
like my mom is a bad mammage general or she
was a bad mamma gemma. And for those of you
all hearing this and they're not certain way Mamma Gemma is,
(37:55):
it's a badass woman.
Speaker 5 (37:59):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
I am excited just to be in this season of
my life. As I've shared, I had the opportunity on
Special Forces and I did well and I have launched
along with my business partners Susan Evans, The New York Times,
step Zone author our own podcast all called Second Wind.
You can find Second Win wherever you find your podcast.
(38:24):
We've brought in some incredible guests in our first season,
and I'm just excited to explore where that's going to
go and to continue to share my story, but even
more so like share the stories of people who inspire
me for various reasons, particularly those who are on their
second win in life. So that's my story in a nutshell.
(38:47):
In a nutshell, I'm going to wrap it up now,
and I want to thank you all really for listening
to this episode of Let's Be Clear. I'm Mary Jones
and you can follow me on Instagram at the Mary Jones.
Until next time
This is Let's be clear, who's Shannon Doherty.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hi, let's be clear listeners. I'm Mary Jones, and you
might know me as a former track and field athlete,
or maybe you know me from my time playing in
the WNBA or college basketball, or maybe even most recently,
you may see me compete on the Hits show Special Courses.
And I'm so honored to be here hosting this episode
(00:28):
of Cannon Dougherty's podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I know I've become a special gathering place for her.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Fans, as well as a positive space where folks can
share their stories and their lessons that they've learned along
the way. So I'm excited to share my journey with
you all today and I hope that maybe just a
little bit of it resonates with you today in a
very special way. So I thought I would start out
by telling you all just a little bit about the
highs and lows of my career. I am a California native.
(00:56):
I was born and grew up in the Los Angeles area,
and my mother and I knew at a very young
age that I was just really blessed with an incredible
amount of talent. I have one older brother, and I
like to joke and say that when your older brother
picks you his younger sister to play on his neighborhood team,
(01:18):
you know that there's something very unique about you.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
And that was the case with me.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I started participating in all kinds of sport and excelled
in all of them. I was also at that time
figuring out life my mom. My mom and my father
biological father were divorced when I was three years old,
and my mom became a single parent. Thankfully, she found
love again and I had an amazing stepfather. So I
(01:46):
had that really warm, loving family until my stepfather passed
away at the age of nine years old. And that
time that I share with you is very pivotal in
my life and in my career because in nineteen eighty four,
I happened to be nine years old, and that was
the summer that the Olympic Games came to Los Angeles,
(02:07):
the city that I was living in, and my mother
took me to the Olympic Parade where all of the
athletes are paraded down the street. That summer, I sat
in front of my television and for the first time
I watched in amazement as the athlete across the Finch line,
and many of them won Olympic gold and I made
the decision, but this is what I wanted to do
(02:29):
with my life. I wanted to achieve success. I wanted
to win gold medals, I wanted to run and I
just I wanted that to be me. And everything from
that point on in my life revolved around that goal,
to the point I even wrote on my chalkboard that
I wanted to be an Olympic champion. Fast forward a
(02:50):
few years. It was just going through a very difficult.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Time in my life. I was an adolescent.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
My mom was working very hard to support my older
brother and I and I was just going through it
with my emotions, not understanding why I had a biological
father who just really.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Didn't want to be in my life.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
And I think a lot of people even listening for
this kind of understand that where maybe you don't have
somebody in your family who is you know, it's supposed
to be supportive, and for whatever reason, they choose they're not.
And so I gave it to my mom. As we
like to say, I was rebellious. I lashed out. I
(03:31):
was one of those adolescents where when your parent asked you,
how are you doing, honey, I would respond with, I'm
fine that you all know what I'm seeing what I say,
I'm fine. That was me, and now, as a parent
of an actual fifteen year old who gets a lot
of those I'm fine, mom, I absolutely understand how difficult
(03:51):
it is to parents, especially at that time when you're
the only parent.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Thankfully, though, for me, I had an outlet.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
My outlet was sport, and as I shared earlier, my
mom and I knew that there was something unique about me. Faster,
I was stronger. I loved it.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
I was passionate about it.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I think a lot of young people at that age twelve, thirteen,
fourteen through high school, they want to be on the
social scene. I, on the other hand, was waiting by
the door with my backpack and shoes and equipment, and
waiting on my mom so that I wouldn't be late
for Prictice. So that gave you a little idea of
the mindset that I had even at that young age.
(04:36):
All of that got you to the age at fifteen
years old where I was blessed enough to make my
first Olympic team. The team that the USA team that
summer was traveling to Soul, Korea, I decided that I
would hold off even though I made the team, I
would pull off on pursuing my Olympic dream and my
(04:57):
Olympic journey because I really didn't think that it was
going to be the right time. So I decided to
stay and continue to hone all of my athletics hills,
particularly basketball at that time. A few years later, I
decided to accept a basketball scholarship to the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I was going to
(05:18):
be a dual sport athlete. So I traveled across the
country from California to North Carolina to start this incredible
athletic and academic journey in Chapel Hill.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
So at this point, I've.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Shared some highs, I've shared some lows when it comes
to relationships, but it was all just the beginning. I
had the opportunity to be on a women's basketball team
at the University of North Carolina that in my freshman
year nineteen ninety three, we won the national championship. And
(05:52):
of course there's so much.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
In the news right now about women's basketball and March Madness,
and I just feel feel very fortunate to have been
on a team of women where we can experience winning
it all.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
It happened to be on the last second shot. So
if you're looking for something to.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Do after hearing this podcast, type in nineteen ninety three,
nineteen ninety four buzzer Beater Women's National Championship and you'll
see Mike tar Hills winning it all.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Certainly a highlight in my life.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Decided that I loved the sport, was going to continue
dabbled in track and field while I was at the
University of North Carolina and four years was really decided
that I wanted to for all of my attention into
my first love, which.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Was track and field. I graduated from the University of
North Calnon.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Nineteen ninety seven and quickly began the trajectory of my
track and field career.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
It happened very quickly, as in about eighteen.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Months, I became arguably one of the fastest women in
the world, became a world champion at that time, and
things in my life were fairly well, apparently going fairly well.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
In nineteen ninety eight, I.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Was traveling around the world competing because, as you might
know listening to this, many of the track and field
athletes in the US have to travel abroad in between
the years of the Olympic Games. Of course, the Olympic
Games are every four years, and these athletes have.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
To spend a majority of their.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Time traveling in Europe and Africa and South and Central
America literally for a living to run these big races.
And so in nineteen ninety eight, I was at a
press conference in Bruckels, Belgium, and a reporter asked me, Marion,
you know, what are your plans for the near future,
particularly the two thousand Games in Sydney. And I don't
(07:52):
know my exact age, but I was early twenties, mid twenties,
and I flippantly answered, just like any twenty year old,
I flippantly answered, I planned to compete in five events
in Sydney, and I planned to win.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Five events, so five golds.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And I said that, and I stayed flippantly because unbeknownst
to me, it had never been done before. So that's
press conference was the catalyst to the world and Hi, hey,
there's this young athlete, incredible and he wants to achieve
history in Sydney. And that kind of took on a
(08:30):
wave and a momentum of its own, whereby the lead
up to the Olympic Games. I was the poster child
for the Olympics. So I was on the cover of
every major magazine from Vogue to Sports Illustrated to.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
Ebony, to Time to Life, and I was that athlete
going into the Sydney Olympics. I went to Sydney achieved
a lot of success.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
I won five medals, three of them gold two of them,
and left Sydney on the most incredible there was len
We get a little bit of context to you all.
During that time in two thousand till about two and ten,
and about a ten year span.
Speaker 6 (09:16):
There had did a lot a lot of news about
athletes and performance enhancing drugs and trying to get a
handle of that in the sport. Well, I've always been
a proponent, proponent for a drug free sport.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
But because I was an elite athlete, I needed to
make sure that any type of vitamin, any type of
supplement that I was taking was going to be free
from any other substances.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
So I hired a company to create the supplement for
me right, and I also had a team around, a
manager and coach it is, and everybody to protect my
best interest, or so I thought. So again achieved a
lot of success in Sydney.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
A few years later, two thousand and three, I get
a phone call from federal prosecutors asking me inviting me,
I say that, loosely, inviting me to come and sit
with them in San Francisco and share any knowledge so
that I might have known about performance handing drugs during
that time, a particular company that was creating them. And
(10:24):
I just quickly said, sure, I don't have any problem.
I don't have anything to hide. Understand that during that
time I was also the most tested athlete in the world,
meeting every few weeks, somebody would come to my home
and I would have to go to the bathroom and urine.
They would text my urine to make sure there were
no performance to handing drugs, and every single time it
(10:46):
was negative.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
So I had nothing to hide. I had hired this company.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I felt very confident that they knew there was nothing
tainted in it at all.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
So I traveled to In two thousand and three, I
traveled to San Francisco with my attorneys and prior to
the meeting, I sat down with federal investigators and signed
what it's called a clean for a day letter, and
if you've never heard of that.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
What it is essentially is you sign this document saying
that you will be honest with the federal prosecutors that
no matter what they asked you, no matter how brutal,
no matter what you've done, if you tell the truth,
they will not prosecute you. Right So, because I went
into this meeting with absolutely nothing too high, I signed
(11:31):
a letter. Very quickly, my attorney looked it over. Everything
was fine. We go into the interview with the federal
prosecutors and very quickly we determined that they felt that
I knew a lot more than what I was sharing
with them, and their questions became a little more intense
and aggressive, to the point about three hours into this
(11:53):
interview they pulled something out of the bag and they
kind of push it towards me, and I quickly realized
in a very short amount of time, I couldn't realize
that there was something that had been given to me
years prior, right before the Olympic Games, by the team
that I had hired, and it's something that I had
taken with the the size of it being something else.
(12:16):
So in that moment, I knew that everything that I
had heard about in the news about these athletes and
performance enhancing drugs, and this particular one called but Clear
was indeed what I was looking at and was indeed
actually something that I had been given. So in that
short amount of time, I made the decision to lie
for fear that everything I had dreamt of, everything I
(12:39):
had worked towards my entire career leading up from nineteen
eighty four when I was nine years old and wrote
I wanted to be an Olympic Champion on my talkboard
to that moment. I feared that if I was to
tell them the truth, that everything that I had worked
for would be taken away, And so I made the
decision to lie. In that moment. Of people when they
(13:00):
hear my story, they say, oh, you know Mary Jones,
she lost it all, or she went.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
To prison because she took performance enhancing drugs.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
That's not accurate. I actually went to prison, and we'll
get to that. Because I had signed that Queen for
a Day letter and because I lied to them, they
were able to come back a number of years later
and try me, and I was found guilty, of course.
But so of course there are a lot of high
and loans to all of that. Fast forward from two
(13:30):
thousand and three to two thousand and seven. I had
been carrying this heavy burden with me for quite some time,
four plus years. A lot had happened in that four years,
in that I had my two sons, I was still competing,
I was still running fast and being considered the fastest
women in the world. But the burden of this life
(13:53):
every single time I raced, every interview would ask are
you a drug free athlete? Do you take right? Just
became heavy.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
But the heaviest part of it all.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
And many people listening to this will understand this that
when you have since, your perspective in life most times
drastically changes and you realize that everything that you say
and everything that you don't say, everything that you do
and sometimes don't do, can and will affect them. And
(14:24):
I was telling my boys, hey, you know, when you
make a poor choice, and it happens in life to everybody,
but when it happens to you, son, like, you need
to come back and you need to tell mom and
we'll deal with the consequences and then we can move
on and be done with it. And I certainly wasn't
living that life. I was quite the hypocrite at that time,
(14:45):
and it just became too much, and I said to myself,
you know what, like like I need a fresh start.
I need to just make this right. And I know
the consequences would be severe. Didn't know they.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Would be as severe as they were.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
And so in two thousand and seven, I've led guilty
to applying to the federal investigators and was sentenced to
six months incarceration. The only athletes that had served any
time in all of that. So, of course that's the
low and probably the lowest point in my career where
the forty nine days spent in solitary confinement. But I
(15:23):
also tell people in all of that, like, I'm not
looking for empathy or sympathy. I certainly made four choices.
But I also say during that time it was a
blessing in disguise because it forced me to analyze my past,
who I was, and more importantly figure out, all, right, well,
what's the next step, what's my tomorrow look like, what's
(15:45):
my next year, what's my five year outlooks look like?
But also I like to say that it forced me
to slow down. Right, there was so much pressure, there
was so much same and fortune as a twenty something
year old that can be enormously overwhelming, and the time
(16:07):
away was really just an opportunity for me to slow
down and to also realize that I had allowed my
sport of choice, track and field, to dominate my life.
Like when people ask me Mary Jones, who are you
back then, my quick response to be, I'm attracting cial
(16:29):
athletes right, which I think a lot of young athletes
get go down that road whereby they identify by who
they are with what they do, and that causes a
lot of problems, particularly towards the end of your career.
(17:00):
So that was the lowest point of my life. I
will tell you that the highlights, of course was winning
the gold medal, but more so the biggest highlight is
now I have three kids twenty one, seventeen, and fifteen,
and I'm proud to say that I am probably the
most joyful and happiest that I've ever been in my life.
(17:22):
I have created such an incredible business around sharing this
idea with people that their failure in life does not
have to be forever that no matter who you are. Yes,
I understand people don't have the incredible life story potentially
that I do.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
It's not all it's to be so to take that
in your account.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
But everybody from all walks of life have some type
of failure that they deal with. It could be a
business that has failed, your finances, your relationship, whatever it is, right,
everybody has been knocked down and everybody needs to learn
tools on how to pick yourself back up and that success,
(18:08):
whatever you identify success as, can be had again and
maybe even more so if you know the right tools right.
So what I share with people is that, hey, you
need a living example of somebody to look forwards that yeah,
they've had so much success, they've lost it all for
various reasons, and they are on the comeback of sport too.
(18:29):
Not I make it identical in terms of the height
of my success, but for me, success and now looks
like people realizing that they are strong, that they can
overcome anything, that their setbacks in life do not have
to define them, that their mistakes don't have to be
their narrative for the rest of their life.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
And that's what I hope to do.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
So that's actually the high of my career and where
I'm at right now, I'm not such a wonderful feeling.
So I share some of the challenges that I faced
that changed me as a person, certainly as an athlete.
I would say that that the challenges of surrounding what
are the challenges that I faced was that I made
(19:13):
the decision to surround myself during that time with what
I call yes people, right. And these are people whom
you make a decision that they're gonna be your community.
They're your people, and they're gonna stay and do anything
that you want them to do, right, and usually it's
(19:35):
for reasons that would benefit them, not too These are
people that if you're making poor decisions, they're gonna say, oh,
I don't have to get a good idea or even
something simple like that output on you. And I made
make a choice during my twice right to surround myself
(19:56):
with people who would just say, Mary, I think that's
a great idea, instead of surrounding myself with people who
would give it to me straight. What do I mean
by that? These are people most likely your parents, right,
not every case, but people who've known you for a
significant amount of time or know you really well, and
who are not afraid to just say, hey, married, maybe
(20:19):
you should rethink that, or hey Mary, maybe you should
look at it from this angle, and so I think
in regard to how I've changed as a person now,
I certainly identify the need to have a strong, strong
community around me that pours into me in a healthy way. Right.
The people that I surround myself now certainly are not
(20:41):
get people. These are people that love me for who
I am, right and are willing to say the hard
things to help me navigate this thing called life. And
I am so very grateful for them in my life.
I want to tell you all why it's so important
I said to surround yourself with the right team, because
(21:04):
if you go through life thinking that it's it's going
to be what social media looks like. Because that's the
big thing right now, Everything on social media is it's beautiful,
general and pretty, and everybody wants to portray their life
as something magical, which we know is not active. Right.
(21:25):
There are moments in life that are, but many thingses
there are at people moments that are not. And I
think people just kind of get stop thinking that's the
way it is, and that there will be no picked
upsk in life. And it's so sad that young people
in particular see this example every day as they scroll Instagram,
(21:48):
tick pout, Facebook, whatever it looks like, whatever social media platform,
and that's what they see all the time. And so again,
surrounding yourself with reality, right they're on yourself with people
who will keep it real is so important, I believe
in our lives. So I also want to share with
(22:10):
you. You know, there was a time when, of course I
surrounded myself with I'm not going to take the wrong people.
They just weren't the right people for me, right, And
that led to obviously a lot of disappointment, uh.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
And just a lot of feeling of hanging there.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
You put like there are a lot of wood haves
and puttos right, and then you could have been X,
Y and Z, or you could have achieved this right.
And I don't really allow myself to go there very
often because it's hard to pull yourself out of that place.
People see particularly now on social media and on interviews
(22:48):
or whatnot, and it looks like one percent I've always
had it together. That's not the case. There are good days,
there are bad days. But now I just learned how
to hope with it all.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
So I want to pivot a little bit.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
We've talked about from UPSTI downs in my life. But
I know a lot of my listeners and followers and
people who watch the Legs Clear podcast just want to
know what it takes to be a disciplined elite athlete
and how people can embrace that discipline in all areas
of their life. And I love to speak on that
(23:26):
because currently what I do. In addition to being on
shows like Speciful Forces, I also am so blessed to
have started my own podcasts with my business partners tou
Van Evans called Second Wind, where we have the opportunity
to sit down with guests from all walks of life
(23:48):
who we believe are on their second wind in life.
They keep achieve some type of success, have hit the roadblock,
people have written them off and all of a sudden
but whatever different reason, they've been able to come back
and it's cake. You know, you'll find that a lot
of companies love to hire former athletes, former champions, and
(24:12):
the reason is very simple.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Is because to be a success, you really in.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Sport, you have to have self discipline. You have to
have figured out the formula to wake up in the
morning when you're tired, or when you're hurt, or when
you're sick, or when you're like, you have social pressure
pulling you away, right, you have to have a certain
(24:38):
discipline to say, you know what, this is my goal
and I'm going to sacrifice everything else for that goal.
So well, that's why you see these Fortune five hundred
companies like when they look at their list of potential candidates,
they're generally lean towards the side of hiring former college
athletes because they know that in the ground, in the
(25:00):
thick of it, these people will get the job done.
For me, I have always been self driven, self motivated.
I had some wonderful coaches and mentors along the way
in my life that I've just been fortunate. I had
(25:21):
some that were horrible. To be honest with you, it
didn't really make a difference for me because I knew
what for me the end game was. The end game
for me was to be a success.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
The endgame for me was to make my mother proud.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
And people sometimes will say, well, Mary, you messed all
day up, and I will quickly respond and say, you
think I have the one person who was there for
me when all of that negative stuff happened on the
courtroom steps after I played guilty. My mom's hand is
(25:57):
on my shoulder and she's tapping my shoulder rubbing. I
told her, and she's my biggest.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Supporter, saying, I love you, everything will be okay. I
believe in you.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
I believe in this next chapter for you. They're gonna
be amazing. And so there's nothing that anybody says on
social media anywhere that can make me believe otherwise. I've
just been grateful for that support for my mother and
just seeing her and all the sacrifices that she has
(26:29):
made in her life has told with the discipline that
I was speaking of earlier, Right, Like, my mom came
here from a small, beautiful country by the name of Believe.
She came here very young, wanting a better life for
herself and for her kids, and she sacrificed time away
(26:50):
from family. She sacrificed so much for a better life
for her kids. And people say, oh, it would be
so difficult to be an elite athlete, so difficult to
do this, And I'll tell you this. I'll say, No,
what's difficult. It's coming to a new country, right leaving
your family behind, having a young child, not knowing what
(27:11):
the future would look like, and waking up every day
with this desire that no matter what, you're going to
make a better life for your kids, like don't is
that is sacrifice? And so when people ask me that,
I just kind of sit back and I say, I like,
you have no idea, right, It might look like, yeah,
(27:32):
the athlete a lot of success, and yes it is.
But then when you have gotten a chance to witness
through greatness and I have with my mom, everything else
is much more simpler. Let's move a little bit more
to like like's talking about fitness and the body, which
I love. I am a certified personal trainer. I have
(27:54):
such a passion for healthy living and for helping people
live longer, happier, healthier lives. Over a decade ago I
got my certification and training people virtually the proper technique
on how to stay fit and run and lift and
all that. And I want to share with you how
(28:16):
I've been able to connect the body, you know, and
as it's older, I will be fifty years old October
of this year, and it's it's.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
It's amazing me to even say.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
That that I've been on this planet for fifty years
and the incredible life that I've been given. But naturally,
at this age you start to see cases in your body.
I start to see aches and pains and things that
I never knew existed. But I have found with a
good nutrition and with a consistent movement pattern, meaning yeah,
(28:54):
I work out every day, full struggle. I have great
four art writings who both needs. You know, I struggle
with certain things. I don't nearly run it. I don't
run nearly as fast as I used to or jump
that side. But every single day of my life there
is some movement right. It's a non negotiable. I share
this with my clients often. Movement every day is a
(29:15):
non negotiable. Good eating right, making sure at this age
protein is everything, particularly for premenopausal and menopausal women. Making
sure that you get the proper amount of protein, healthy water, intake,
good sleep, relieving stress and so to me, just making
(29:36):
sure that is a priority in my life as I
age is so very important. I decided a few.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Years fact that.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
I would notice a good amount of my friends who
are my age. I would see them getting heavier, I
would see them stressed out. I would see them dealing
with work and relationships and just really struggling overall in
their life. And I was been having those struggles and
I decided number of years fact that.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Making a decision to one plunging thing every.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Year of my life, something that's going to get me
out of my comfort zone, I think is the recipe
for a long and healthy life. So this year I
made the decision that I was going to attempt to
compete in my first triathlon. I had had an affinity
for the sport for many years, lots of respect for
these athletes who have to commit so much of their
(30:49):
time to perfecting three different disciplines or really four if
you consider nutrition as one cycling, biking, swimming, good nutrition.
And I decided that I wanted to compete this year
and see what I can do. And I've taken that
on and he has taken over my life. But I'm
excited to say that in about one month time, I
(31:10):
will be competing in Honolulu in a triathlon. And really,
what it.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Has taught me at this stage of my life.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Is an endurance component that I have been unfamiliar with,
particularly because in my prime, endurance was not the thing
right I was intended. I was chosen to run fast
from here to there, very fast, not around around, around,
(31:39):
around me tract lots of times and so taking on
a sport where endurance is everything. You can't go out
too hard, you can't go out too fast. You have
to learn and hate that you can maintain at a
high level for an extended period of time. It's such
a challenge for me participating in disciplines that I didn't
have a background. The pop swimming, I knew how to swim,
(32:04):
but the swimming that I did was hey, with my friends,
I'm jumping off the diving board and getting over to
the side, or with my kids making sure that they
don't drownd, nor do I.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
I've never really swam left from.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Here to there. I learned proper technique and that is
mind blowing, especially learning to do that as an adult.
So that is the first challenge, the swimming component. The
second challenge was the fipling component. Did I know how
to ride my bike? Sure, my little Puffy and if
you're a third age you know all about puffy. I
(32:37):
could ride that around the block, or I can ride
that fast. But it had been a number of years
before I had really been on a bike for a
good amount of time, and there is a skill set
associating with that that I did not have that I
had had to learn. And then, of course the third
discipline is the running component, and most people hearing from
me might say, oh, that portion he must have down packs.
(33:00):
Got agatn't? I can run? Used to run fast from
here to there right short distance, but to have to
run a five k or further was mentally exhausting in
addition to physically exactly so.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Having to train my body for that.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
It has forced me to learn balance in my life
because I when I competed at the highest.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Level, like that was all that.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
I was supposed to do. Train At this point in
my life, It's not all I supposed to do. I
have a family, I have a business that need as
much science as my training. So learning balance in my
life and not allowing it to overwhelm me, not allowing
it to start to define again who I am and
(33:45):
want to be, has been the challenge. But it has
taught me so many new things about myself and whom
I want to be as a person, a mother, a partner,
an athlete, and I do things that I didn't even realize.
So that is my journey on triathlon. Every year from
this point out, I plan.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
To choose something new, something that.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
I a new skill, set a new challenge, something that
I've never done before, and I'm just so excited to
have discovered that and the need for that really in
my life. So with all of that, you know, my
kids have watched me transform and through all of this
(34:29):
all along with them. My mom, I've always just been
mom for them. It's funny. They know about my success
in sport, they also know about my challenges in life.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
But at the end of the day, I'm his mom.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
If you're listening to this, you know about that that
As long as I have their cash app and their
Venmo and I'm the mama Uber, they're perfectly happy. But
people always ask me why I made certain choices to
come back onto the scene, why I even decided to
play professional basketball I had after I had been released
(35:05):
from prison, And I tell them it's this simple fit,
simple equations for me. My kids, particularly with social media
and the internet, like they even if I made a
choice not to.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Tell them about what I did in my past.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
They would know. I certainly wanted to be able to
explain things to them how they understand which I've done right.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
But also as they get older and they have their
own families and they many dive.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
In deeper into their mom's life. I wanted them to
be able to follow the trajectory of my life and
my career and see certain things that were important to me.
One sure, had a childhood and an adolescence whereby I
learned to love spork, found out I was very good
(35:56):
at it, achieved some hues dry and successes in sport,
Olympic champion, all of that. Along the way on this timeline,
Mom made some poor choices, right, lost it all right,
had to figure out how to refrain whom she was,
how to figure out what is she going to do
(36:17):
with her world and with her life, and to build
her reputation back. And again they're following this timeline and notice,
oh yeah, you know she had come back from it all.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
You know, She's had the opportunity to share.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Her story with the world with the hope that people
can make better choices for their own lives and the
fact that I can be a living example to them,
and even once I'm gone from this world, they can
share with their kids and their families like this is
(36:51):
this is what real life looks like, if not what
you see on social media. Always right, this is what
real life looks like you have to set them time.
Sometimes you make a wrong whom you make a wrong call.
Sometimes something knock you down. Maybe it's a death in
your family, Maybe it's a divorce. Maybe it's something you've
done and not git down right, and you do not
(37:13):
know how you're gonna take another step, and you figure
it out, You repray, You create your own legacy, you
create your own narrative, and you pull yourself out of
that dark place, and all of a sudden you find
yourself knocking on the doors and then actually being opened
for you whatever that looks like the next season of
(37:34):
your life. And and for me, I can sit back
and say, Okay, a life well lived because my kids
can identify and see the timeline and say, you know what,
like my mom is a bad mammage general or she
was a bad mamma gemma. And for those of you
all hearing this and they're not certain way Mamma Gemma is,
(37:55):
it's a badass woman.
Speaker 5 (37:59):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
I am excited just to be in this season of
my life. As I've shared, I had the opportunity on
Special Forces and I did well and I have launched
along with my business partners Susan Evans, The New York Times,
step Zone author our own podcast all called Second Wind.
You can find Second Win wherever you find your podcast.
(38:24):
We've brought in some incredible guests in our first season,
and I'm just excited to explore where that's going to
go and to continue to share my story, but even
more so like share the stories of people who inspire
me for various reasons, particularly those who are on their
second win in life. So that's my story in a nutshell.
(38:47):
In a nutshell, I'm going to wrap it up now,
and I want to thank you all really for listening
to this episode of Let's Be Clear. I'm Mary Jones
and you can follow me on Instagram at the Mary Jones.
Until next time
Host
Shannen Doherty
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