To accomplish the goal, Jones did the math and realized that she’d need to run multiple Incline laps per day, so she worked up to doing doubles, then triples, then quads—pushing herself to become stronger and faster. Eventually, she was able to do a lap in less than an hour and maintain that pace for several laps in a row. But then she heard about an “inclinathon”—doing 13 laps back to back, the equivalent of a marathon since each round trip was 2 miles—and a new challenge-within-a-challenge formed in her mind. “It was difficult, but if you break any challenge down into pieces … and then just do those pieces one by one, eventually you get there,” said Jones of her strategy. With the extra laps Jones was now doing, she was actually disappointed to discover that she was on track to finish her original 500-laps challenge early, so she decided to up the ante to 1,000 laps, a feat that only three men had also accomplished at the time. In all weather and in all seasons, she kept climbing, even through snow drifts when “only the most extreme locals were out there.” But as she approached the latter half of her new challenge, something unexpected happened. “By the end of September 2022—when I had finally done all those inclinathons—I found out I was pregnant,” recalled Jones. “My doctor said, ‘Whatever you’ve been doing leading up to pregnancy, you can continue doing; you just have to listen to your body.’ Going into October, I was definitely hit with all the first trimester symptoms, which slowed me down quite a bit, but I was still out there pushing myself. I knew I
was safe, and my doctor knew I was safe, so I continued with my challenge, and at the end of that year, I reached my goal.” Jones’ 1,000 party was a “huge celebration” that included a handmade plaque from her mentor Greg Cummings, her pregnancy announcement and a gender reveal. “The people that had been in the 500 Club became my friends,” said Jones. “I took so much good energy
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