At first glance, freshman Jenny Xu looks like just another ordinary kid. She wears a hoodie and shorts to school and ties her black hair back in a low ponytail. Her backpack is filled with books, and for the most part, she doesn’t say much. When I ask her where she would like our interview to be, she holds up her sandwich and says in a soft voice, with a small smile, “Somewhere I can eat my lunch.” She blends in with the school crowd quite nicely.
That’s until she laces up her running shoes and takes to the trail. After that, it’s hard not to remember her.
“The first time I saw her run, I was like, ‘Damn, she’s fast!’” cross country captain and senior Neha Jammu said.
And fast she is.
After running in only two official meets, Xu, who runs with the varsity boys because she is so fast, found that her name was already listed on school cross country records. By her third week of high school, she had accomplished more than most cross country runners achieve in four years. She had set a record. She had placed first in a meet. And as her times show, she is now one of the fastest girls at this school. “She took us by surprise,” Jammu said. “We haven’t had a girl this fast for a while.”
Xu’s journey into cross country came as a surprise even to her. Unlike other athletes, she did not begin the sport at a young age, nor did she discover a true passion for running until later.
“When I was little, I was faster than everyone else, but not much faster,” Xu said. “Actually, I didn’t really notice that I was fast at all.”
According to Xu, neither of her parents are particularly athletic, so she previously assumed that she would not be an athlete either. And though her immense success in cross country may make people think otherwise, Xu did not fall in love with the sport right away.
“I started cross country in seventh grade because P.E. teachers made me,” Xu said, “They thought I was fast. They tried to make me run in sixth grade, too, but I didn’t want to.”
When Xu finally relented and joined the cross country team, she realized at last what her P.E. teachers had noticed—there was something special about her running. “It’s not just that she’s fast,” cross country coach Kirk Flatow said. “She can maintain her speed as well.” Flatow first saw Xu run at an all-comers meet when Xu was in middle school. Looking back, he said, “I could tell she was going to be good. She has a very economical, natural, efficient stride.”
But Xu did not know exactly how fast she ran, not until she broke multiple records at Lawson Middle School. Only then did she begin to think that she was, perhaps, a little more talented than she had first expected.
At the first MVHS cross country practice, Xu looked unassuming, armed only with her ability to run and a visor to keep the sun and sweat out of her eyes—no fancy running shoes or grand fanfare. “When I first saw her at practice, I didn’t really think anything [of her] … I just thought, ‘Oh, there’s a new freshman who wants to join cross country and have some fun,’” Jammu said.
Unsure of whether her speed in middle school would still be considered fast in high school, Xu had decided to continue running in high school not for medals or a college scholarship, but simply because she had enjoyed the experience in middle school.
The team set out on their first course, a three-mile run, at Stevens Canyon Park. Flatow remembers seeing the first varsity boys return—with Xu right at their heels. “She’s fast, Coach,” one varsity boy said, panting, as Xu nonchalantly walked away, hardly tired, to get a drink of water. “It comes naturally [for Xu],” Flatow said. “Some people like her are just blessed.”
But it was soon clear that raw talent was more than enough for Xu. The girl barely over five feet tall quickly established herself as one to win, placing first in the annual MVHS Watermelon Time Trial, ahead of even experienced veterans of the team. She came in first yet again in the Earlybird Invitational, competing against over a hundred other freshman girls from schools all around the Bay Area. While Xu placed seventh in the highly competitive five-kilometer Stanford Invitational meet, her time of 18:49.9 was still fast enough to qualify her for a record at MVHS—the fastest Stanford Invitational run ever completed by a MVHS girl, with 10 seconds to spare. “I’m really impressed. Before, everyone was like, ‘Oh, Kevin Bishop!’” Jammu said, referring to the senior who currently holds three MVHS running records. “Well, now there’s Jenny Xu.”
