When Jaylan Blake graduated from Herrin High School in 2021, she had a modest plan: go to college, get a degree, figure out the rest.

She enrolled at SIU to study mechanical engineering, switched her major back and forth, and spent a year uncertain about the direction. Then her older sister — a 2019 Herrin graduate who had taken almost the same path before enlisting in the Navy — came home on spring break.

That conversation changed everything.

"I thought it would be a good career starter," Jaylan said. "I could always get my education later."

She enlisted in the summer of 2022. After basic training and nine months of specialized schooling in Pensacola, she earned the rating of Cryptologic Technician Collection — signals intelligence work she describes as cybersecurity's military cousin.

Her first assignment was a pre-commissioning ship: the USS Richard M. McCool Jr., still under construction in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Jaylan became part of its original crew — a "plank owner" in Navy terms. While waiting for the vessel to be commissioned, she volunteered for deployment and was assigned to the USS Bataan.

The timing proved historic. She left in July 2023, heading for the Mediterranean and Red Sea just as the Israel-Hamas conflict erupted. For eight and a half months, she operated in the middle of it.

During a career counseling session aboard ship, her chief asked what she wanted to do with her future. She told him she'd always wanted to commission as an officer but had enlisted first to make sure she truly wanted military life. He connected her with an ensign on the ship who was herself a prior-enlisted Naval Academy graduate. That ensign walked Jaylan through the application.

She got in.

"I think they were probably shocked," she said of her family's reaction. Her parents, neither with military backgrounds, understood enough to know the Naval Academy is in a different tier. Students who had options at the Ivies chose Annapolis instead. Jaylan is now among them.

The academic intensity exceeded anything she'd imagined. Nineteen to twenty credit hours is the standard load — before accounting for military duties, leadership obligations, and physical training. "I was taking 14 credits at SIU, and I thought that was hard," she said. "I didn't understand the level that universities could get to until I got to the Naval Academy."

She is currently a second-class midshipman — a junior — with two years remaining before commissioning as an ensign.

Through it all, she found time to become a marathon runner.

It started practically: running to stay fit for the Navy's physical readiness tests. At the Academy, she joined the marathon team and, in her plebe year, ran the Marine Corps Marathon alongside a friend in her class. She kept going. Her fourth marathon, a spring race her freshman year, produced a result she genuinely didn't see coming: a qualifying time for Boston.

"I honestly didn't think I could run that fast for that long," she said. "I hadn't done four miles at that pace, more than four miles at that pace. It made me realize your body can do way more than you think it can."

She ran Boston. She's up to four marathons total.

When she talks about Herrin to classmates from across the country, she doesn't oversell it. "There isn't much to do there," she'll say. But the people keep people there, and when she goes back — to her family, her friends, Polar Whip and Louie’s P&R, and the familiar quiet — she relaxes in a way Annapolis doesn't allow.

She credits the people who shaped her. Her dad is a firefighter. Her mom, who ran her own business. And Matthew Snell, elementary PE teacher at Herrin and her tennis coach, whose intensity on behalf of his players left a mark. "The passion he had for his team and the kids that were on it was incredible."

Her advice to her younger self: "There's no reason to stress out. You don't need to know everything right now. People's jobs and career paths change all the time. You can go anywhere, and you'll end up doing something great."

She should know.

"Life is a marathon. People who sprint get too tired."