Jenny Goes Jogging

Jenny was goal oriented in many ways, though goals involving physical exertion, say the idea of running a marathon or clocking a mile in under six minutes had never been her thing. In high school when her older sister Becca was traveling with her club soccer team up and down California to weekend-long tournaments, she had holed up in her room fulfilling her goal of memorizing Shakespeare’s sonnets (one a day for 154 days). Back in elementary school her friend group raced to see who could make a friendship bracelet in under five minutes (not Jenny though she did achieve that goal eventually) and in middle school to see who would get their first kiss first (yay Jenny). Her goal of getting a Gold Key in the Scholastic Arts and Writing awards was finally achieved as a high school senior, for the watercolor she titled Traveling Light, and to be honest it was worthy. She gravitated to the arts and to those who also appreciated them, and yes, thought to herself that all Becca’s obsessing over conditioning in the off season and doing things like running to the beach and back from their house in the hills of La Jolla seemed pointless. 

Freshman year at UCLA, her roommate Mel who she found in a FaceBook group for new students and was a bit of a poser but nice enough one-on-one, turned her on to something new.

“Ok so I’ve seriously walked over 6 miles today like just going back and forth from class.” Mel plopped down on the cream colored faux fur blanket that covered her bed and flashed the cracked screen of her iphone across the room at Jenny. The new phone was arriving tomorrow, her second since the semester began a month ago, even though there was a shop in town where you could get a ninety nine dollar screen replacement.

“You’ll walk a lot less if you stop coming back to the room in between class to refresh your eyeliner,” Jenny said, smirking. She slipped a binder in her backpack. Early American Art was at least a twenty minute walk to the other end of campus and she had to get going. UCLA was sprawling.

Mel, the antithesis of sporty, was a rich girl from Manhattan who obsessively flat-ironed her hair and occasionally dropped in things like “private jet to Deer Valley” and “our place in the Hamptons” to make sure you knew. It struck Jenny as odd that Mel cared how many miles she walked in a day. As far as she could tell in their first month together, parties, boyfriends and getting packages from Net-a-Porter and Apple were on her agenda. Exercise was not. 

“I’m into it. If I do all that walking I never have to actually work out. How bout you, how far’d you go today?” Mel asked.

Jenny shrugged, running her hand through her silky brown bob. “Never thought to look.”

Mel reached out and grabbed Jenny’s phone while Jenny dabbed on lip gloss. There were three boys in EAA who she’d been eyeing. 

“Girl you’ve already clocked 3.8. Oh no way and you average 4.3 so far this month. That’s not bad. You’re getting your 10,000 steps.”

Jenny had heard that before, that 10,000 steps a day, which roughly equalled 4 miles, was advised by all the health experts or something, but it just had not occurred to her to care. 

Mel tossed the phone back to Jenny, which she fumbled but saved before it plunked on the ground, a miracle since Jenny had no eye-hand coordination.

Professor Gallaway was going on about some Pre Columbian artifact of a Mayan pendant and it’s not that it wasn’t interesting it just wasn’t where Jenny’s mind was. 

The walk to Dodd Hall had added .9 miles, so she was now at 4.7 and so by the time she walked back to the dorm she’d be around 5.6 and later she was meeting up with this junior she’d met at a frat party. He lived in an apartment on Gower which was at least a half mile from her room at Sproul Hall. They’d been hooking up a couple times a week, though it was clearly nothing exclusive.  

Back in her room late that evening, she scrolled the app. She was practically at 7 freaking miles for the day. Why was that so gratifying?

“Do you track your miles, Bec?” she asked Becca on FaceTime while she walked to the Thalberg Building the next day. They talked at least a few times a week. 

“Oh my god forever,” Becca told her. She was now a senior at Colorado College, majoring in Kinesiology, forward on the soccer team and dating girls exclusively. “Wait, did you cut your hair?”

“Oh, yeah, this girl down the hall does it for everyone.”

“Cute,” Becca said.

“So anyway, what’s your average?”

“Um, hold on, usually around 8 I think. Oh wait, yesterday 8.2.”

“Oooh so jealous,” Jenny growled.

“Wait, why? Not like you.”

“Just kinda was thinking, well I have a new goal for the year.”

“I thought your goal was to have a boyfriend to spend New Years with,” Becca said, matter-of-fact. 

  “Not really promising at the moment, but...ok so I walk an average of 4.3 miles a day here, but when I combine that with the rest of the year, when I was still in high school and then over the summer when I was just sitting around painting all day it--”

Becca had to cut her off to point out the truth. “Actually you were sitting on the beach every day with your friends as I recall.”

“Ok well that too.” She stuck out her tongue at the screen. “So it averages to 3.2 miles for the year, but I want to get it up to a 4 mile average before New Years Day.”

“Go for it,” Becca encouraged. 

“Yeah, it’s hard to make a real dent in the average since it’s over the course of the entire year, but do you think I’ll get there if I do say 8 miles a day? Or should I do more? Can you do the calculation for me?” Afterall she had applied as an Art History Major and had barely squeaked by on the SAT math section. There was clearly some way to calculate it, but she didn’t know the formula.

“Oh, for sure, 8 should be plenty. That’ll average out if you keep it up. And maybe when we’re home for the holidays you’ll come out for a run with me.”

“Hah! Or not.”

“Now tell me about the junior.”

“It’s just a fling. No one here wants a commitment.”

“Jen? What the f are you doing?” Mel asked, stepping inside their cramped room later that day.

Jenny froze and sort of clenched her teeth. Her Intro to English Literature, a boring gen ed requirement, had been cancelled for some random reason so she had not needed to make the afternoon trek across campus. But no trek equaled no miles, so she’d been running in place in the room listening to King Princess and had actually built up a bit of a sweat while she clocked a full 2 miles.  

“Just, well, getting in some steps.” She was legit embarrassed. 

Mel plugged in the flat-iron for an afternoon touch up. “Whatever thrills you.” 

But Jenny clearly was thrilled. And as the week passed, she realized it felt good to move more, she was in a better mood than she’d been in since she’d started college. Homework was feeling effortless and the guy on Gower was more into her, judging by the number of texts and just a general vibe she was getting, though she was starting to lose interest. And seriously, why run in place in her cramped room? There was no reason why she couldn’t add steps by working out on a treadmill in the gym or by actually taking a run around campus. 

She rushed shipped a pair of red Nike Zoom Pegasus, the same style that Becca used, and a week later was out on her inaugural jog, low ponytail bopping, phone clutched in her hand, glancing each block to see how much she’d added on the app. Though she did not make it far that first time out, each day she added a bit and by the end of October could make it almost three miles without stopping.

“Didn’t know you were into jogging,” said Blake, the cutest of the three from EAA, as she walked into class. He was lanky with dark wavy hair, just her type. Turns out he’d seen her trotting by the dinning hall twice now. 

“It’s kinda’ a new thing,” admitted Jen, trying to be lowkey.

“We should do it.”

She paused, awkwardly.

  “Go for a jog together,” he clarified.

Why wait. “Meet me outside of Sproul at 5:30?” she suggested as he slid into the seat beside her. 

So they met and they jogged 3 miles, got grab-n-go dinners and then they actually did do it. He had his own room, in the Southern Suites, with three other roommates who were Engineering majors. Blake and Jenny seamlessly shifted into a routine together, 5:30 weekday runs of increasing lengths, homework together, Netflix as they dozed off to sleep. She’d stay over in his room on Fridays and they’d do a longer run on Saturday mornings, take Sundays off for a drive to the beach and a long walk or something like that. She didn’t tell him about her goal to get the 4 mile average for the year, because it seemed kind of dorky, but when she knew he couldn’t look over her shoulder and see her checking the app she’d take a peak. Between walking around campus and all the jogging she was clocking almost 8 miles most days and her yearly average was moving up, now 3.7. 

Home in La Jolla for winter break, she did take her sister up on a jog and kept up the whole way to the beach, though she stalled out on the way back. A few days later she tried again and made it all the way. She was inching closer to her goal, finally at 3.9. 

That first week of vacation she hung out with her old friends (the friendship bracelet crew who had reunited after drifting apart in high school), FaceTimed with Mel every few days from her sprawling house in Deer Valley, texted a ton with Blake, and found herself getting along with her parents better than ever. Becca came down with the flu the week before New Years and soon, Jenny was slammed with the same bug. No walking, no running, just a couple days laying in bed with her laptop feeling like crap. Finally on the 30th she woke up feeling better and after her first good meal in days headed out for a long walk. Being sedentary had totally messed up her average, she was down to 3.8 for the year and there were two days left to bring that up to make her goal. Jenny took the route down to the beach and extended it along the coast for miles and miles, but she would seriously have to run a marathon tomorrow to get there. But who’s to say she couldn’t? What better way to ring in the new year! She charted it on her phone, a route that was thirteen miles out and if she had to she’d walk back, but she’d get there, she’d see that beautiful number 4 emblazoned on her screen. Goal would be met. 

While she was out on a neighborhood stroll that evening, Blake texted: “Want to spend New Years with you”

He lived in Santa Barbara so it was just a 4 hour drive. But would her parents be okay with that? They’d let Becca’s girlfriend Jane sleep in their guest room many times, so why not Blake? He was there by late the next morning, orchid for Jen’s mom in one hand, running shoes in the other, ready to try running a marathon per her request. 

        Jen and Blake headed out on the route around two.  A crisp clear California day, cute new shiny black leggings from Becca in place, beautiful boy by her side, she was ready. She always clutched her phone while they ran and had made it a practice to play music through the speakers. They started with a playlist she’d made, inspirational and a little cheesy, lots of disco and Christmas tunes even though it was after the fact. Around mile 10, while stuck waiting for the light to change at an intersection, Blake grabbed the phone and scrolled Spotify for something that would feel motivational. The walk sign flashed and he tossed the phone back to Jen, now blasting Watermelon Sugar. She fumbled. Jenny may have become a runner but she was still a klutz. She lunged for her phone but it hit the pavement, clunked down, sliding into the gutter and suddenly out of view underneath the warning “Drains to Ocean.” She gasped.

“Oh shit!” Blake gagged. “I’m so sorry babe.” 

She looked at the blue skies, at her boyfriend by her side and suddenly didn’t care that she’d never be able to see that 4 mile average for the year on the screen of her phone. Or who knows, maybe she never would have made it anyway. 

Jenny burst out laughing and then so did Blake. They ran on, smiling back and forth shouting out the lyrics of the song together. When they did finish that run, 26.2 freaking miles, and toasted over champagne in her backyard as midnight struck, Jenny knew that when she got a new phone she’d never need to look at that damn app ever again.