Jones' Finds Footing In Final Season With Blue Hens

Earlier this fall, Delaware cross country head coach Ryan Waite found himself in a predicament that he had unfortunately gotten used to over the past few years.

He and his assistant, Chris Warren, were at the first check point at the prestigious Paul Short Invitational in Bethlehem, Pa., and as they watched runner after runner go by, he wondered, "Where's Mackenzie?" After countless injuries and numerous obstacles throughout her collegiate career, Waite had figured redshirt junior Mackenzie Jones had dropped out of the race.

As Waite and Warren got closer to the finish line, Jones blew past them, finding herself amongst one of the first packs of runners.

"I said to Chris, wait, there's Mackenzie!" Waite laughed. "We were just so happy to see her finally be able to put a race together like that and I think it's done a lot for her confidence."

In a race that featured nearly 400 runners, Jones clocked in at over 40 seconds better than her previous collegiate best and found herself in the top-75 of the race, pacing the Blue Hens. It's a feat she has repeated numerous times this fall.

"Getting over that hurdle and really gaining some confidence in how I can push my body, it's really been the reason for the way I've run this fall," Jones added.

Jones' journey certainly hasn't been an easy one. The Danville, Pa., native arrived on campus in the fall of 2016 and suffered an injury mid-way through that cross country season, forcing her to miss the indoor track season.

During the first few weeks of the 2017-18 campaign, Jones suffered a broken foot that kept her out the entire fall. She returned to the track that indoor season, earning an ECAC berth, but then suffered another injury prior to the outdoor season.

Last year, she was about fifty-percent for much of the fall and indoor season, before starting to find her stride late in the 2019 outdoor season.

Currently, she's running with a broken sesamoid in her foot. It's a bone embedded in a tendon and connects most of the tendons in the foot.

"It's honestly really tough to put into words just how frustrating it's been," Jones said. "Every time I thought I was getting back to close to where I was, I'd get hit by a setback. You work so hard and try to do everything you can to be healthy and then there's another bump in the road."

Waite jokingly refers to Jones as the program's science experiment.

"We've tried everything and it's really a project in hit-and-miss efforts. We try to go hard for a certain amount of days and then mix in aquatic workouts or we try to take a certain amount of days off, it's really been a partnership between the two of us and understanding what works best for her body," Waite said.

Throughout the journey, Jones has relied heavily what she's learned in the classroom as she is set to graduate in three and a half years with an Exercise Science honors degree.

"Knowing and understanding some of the inner workings of the body and learning so much about how the body functions, I'm able to apply it every day in however I'm training," Jones said.

In an ironic twist of fate, the injuries are exactly what pushed Jones towards her major. Entering school as an Exercise Science major, she found herself in a lot of chemistry classes and after one semester, decided to switch to marketing as a major

After suffering the broken foot in September of the following year, Jones found herself back in doctor's offices getting MRI after MRI.

"Being around those tests and processes, it was really interesting to me. I wanted to understand more and have as much knowledge as possible of what's happening with my body, so I switched back to Exercise Science," Jones said.

She's currently in the midst of applying for Physician Assistant's programs, and with eligibility left in both track and cross country, possibly extending her collegiate career a little longer.

But for now, Jones is staring down the final few races of her Blue Hens career, including this weekend's CAA Championship in New Market, Virginia.

"Knowing this was the last season, I think Ryan and I both wanted to really push it and get the most out of the time I had left here," Jones added. "I wanted to give everything I can to this program because they really have been my family during the past four years."

University of Delaware Athletics

Related News

Players Mentioned

Mackenzie Jones

Related Videos