Dedication and resilience are core principles for long-distance runners and Aubrey resident Jackie Lovelady has been exemplifying that, racking up the miles by running and winning ultramarathons for over a decade.
Jackie was most recently the first female competitor to ever finish the Achilles Hill Last Person Standing in Sunset, Texas, where runners complete a 4.16-mile loop every hour until only one remains.
“It felt amazing,” she said. “Ultra runners and especially trail runners are special kind of people. We all cheer each other on. You'll see runners that put their earbuds in, and they all race together, but they don't experience it together. That's not trail running. You don't see earbuds as much and people chat and talk, and I've met my best friends in my life while running, and so just a community of people and everybody out there cheering us on as we were going. It was just so cool and a really neat experience, and I'm not ever going to forget it.”
Jackie, who was born on April Fool’s Day, said she discovered her love of running at a very young age.
“I would race my friends that were on bikes after school,” she said. “I would tell them, ‘I can beat you home’, and it was at least a mile, but I'd take off running with my backpack and generally beat them.”
She added that her competitive running career took off in high school.
“Couple girls in my neighborhood had these neat warm-up outfi ts on, and I asked them, ‘Where'd y'all get that?’ and they said, 'We joined the track team, and we got them,' so I showed up to practice for the outfit, and that’s why I started running competitively in high school. It turns out I was pretty good at it, you know. I was region champion a couple of times and got a full ride scholarship to go to college.”
Jackie’s collegiate career was cut short after her mother Janet Jensen was diagnosed with cancer.
“I had that full scholarship, but I ended up coming home, and I spent the last six months of her life with her,” she said. “I never went back to school, but running helped me get through losing her, and I still run to process my problems and feelings.”
Jackie said running also provided an outlet when she started her family.
“We didn't have a lot of money, so I had a choice of the library or parks and that was it, so I put the kids in stroller and started running,” she said. “I eventually started signing up for 5Ks and said, if I can do a 5K, [I can] do 10K and then maybe I can do a half marathon.”
The reality television show 'The Biggest Loser' gave Jackie the push she needed to take the next step.
“At the end of the season, they would have the people come out and do a marathon, and I said if these people could do a marathon, then surely I can do a marathon, so I did,” she said. “My first marathon my time was four hours and six minutes, and that six minutes bothered me, so I needed to do it again because I knew I could do better.”
After her first marathon in April of 2008 the pace started to pick up for Jackie’s running career, with her qualifying for the Boston Marathon later the same year.
She eventually expanded into mud runs, running her first Spartan Race in December of 2008, which consists of a 5K trail featuring water and mud with 20 obstacles; she competed in the first Spartan Championship Race.
Jackie continued to push her limits as an athlete in Spartan competitions for the next 10 years, working her way up to the Spartan Ultra, which is a is a grueling 50K trail run with 60+ obstacles.
Her running has taken her to the pinnacle of athletic competition, appearing on Steve Austin’s 'Broken Skull Challenge,' competing at the World’s Toughest Mudder and completing the Spartan Race World Championship and the Spartan Ultra in a two-day span.
Jackie was even able to share her love of running with the Aubrey community, forming a youth running club after she started using running to help one of her sons manage his ADHD.
“I was unwilling to medicate him, but I knew he had a lot of energy, and that is hard for teachers to channel that energy,” she said. “It was hard to expect him to go to school and then come home and do homework, so I thought I have him run a mile after school and burn some energy then he can focus and do homework. Then I thought if my child needs this how many other kids do, so I set up on a corner with a water jug and even posted about it on Facebook.”
The running club, formally known as the 100 Mile Club, started out small but eventually blossomed into a large group that helped introduce Aubrey youth to benefits of long-distance running, with the goal of reaching 100 miles by the end of the school year.
“I used to keep totals of how many miles all the kids together ran,” she said. “I think one year it was like 3, 000 miles, but we ended up with quite a few kids that started doing this over the years. Even after my kids left that school to go to the middle school another mom took over, and then I got talked into starting one at the middle school.”
The 100 Mile Club ended around 2020, but Jackie said the group still holds a special place in her heart.
“That was my pride and joy,” she said. “It made so much stress in my life, and there were many days I did not love it, but I’m so thankful that I put that work in because I still have people reaching out and talking about the difference that it made in their lives and their kids’ lives.”
Jackie thanked her parents, Janet and Jeff Jensen, her husband Steve Lovelady and her children Matthew Haws, Jordan Rust, Kylee Rust and Jase Lovelady for all the love and support they have given her over the years.
With quite the resume behind her, Jackie said, she still has more heights she wants to reach and offered words of wisdom for any interested parties.
“You get one body for your whole life, and that’s it, so you better take care of it” she said. “That's something I learned from my mother at a young age. It doesn't matter how nice your car is or how nice your house is if your body is not working well enough to enjoy it. We only have one life to live, so freaking live it. Remove your face from the screens and go outside. It doesn't take much to meet new people, to make memories and make adventures.”
