Will Murray stood underneath the orange dawn sky and believed.
You belong, he advised himself on the 2025 Black Canyon 100k begin line in February. It’s doable that the one different particular person there who believed that was his older sister and sole crew member that day, Emma Murray.
Subsequent to him had been a number of the nation’s high ultrarunners, professionals with contracts, recognizable names, and wins at main races. Murray’s a full-time highschool math trainer who felt dangerous lacking two days of sophistication through the faculty 12 months to be there.
You get to carry out in the present day, his silent self-talk, rehearsed numerous occasions, continued. Compete with your self to attain the perfect day doable.
For the subsequent 7.5 hours, Will Murray achieved one thing near the perfect day doable. After 62 miles and 5,000 ft of elevation acquire, operating close to the entrance for your entire race and enduring a fall that bloodied his knees, he crossed the end line in second place in 7:26:53, lower than two minutes behind the winner, Seth Ruhling, and underneath the earlier course document, set final 12 months by Hayden Hawks.
Will Murray (left) on the 2025 Black Canyon 100k males’s podium, having positioned second. Picture: Grand Canaria World Path Majors/Howie Stern
He let loose an uncharacteristic scream and fist pump. “Let’s freaking go, Will!” Emma Murray shouted as her youthful brother poured water on his head, cooling down but additionally maybe attempting to make sense of what he’d simply executed.
Minutes later, he acquired a Golden Ticket to the Western States 100 from its race director, Craig Thornley. “Good to satisfy you,” Murray advised him. “I’m Will.” Thornley smiled, shook his hand, and quipped, “I don’t know who you might be.”
Who’s Will Murray?
Who’s Will Murray? Let’s begin with the fundamentals: Murray is 30 years outdated. He teaches calculus and geometry at Blair Academy, a boarding faculty in New Jersey, the place he additionally coaches baseball. He positioned fifth on the 2024 Leadville 100 Mile in his debut on the distance. He scribbles notes about his operating in journals and describes his strategy to coaching as “creative.” He loves planning routes and “bringing a map to life.” Exterior of Strava, he has no social media presence. He can communicate and perceive French.
“He’s the good particular person I do know,” is how Emma Murray summarized him. “He’s like probably the most mild-mannered, humble man: Teaches math, lives in a sophomore boys’ dorm,” mentioned Peter Curran, the pinnacle of faculty at Blair Academy. “He simply goes out and crushes races.”
Murray grew up in Georgia, taking part in baseball and operating cross nation in highschool, and had aspirations to run in faculty. He confirmed as much as the monitor at 6 a.m. throughout his freshman orientation at Miami College to strive for the cross-country workforce. He was the one one there. The coach advised him he needed to run three miles in underneath quarter-hour after which watched as Will ran circles by himself at nighttime. “I ran like 15:10 or one thing,” Murray mentioned. “And he gave me the information for the membership workforce.”
Murray laughed at this origin story of a Western States 100 Golden Ticket recipient: a strong runner, relegated to the membership workforce at a faculty within the NCAA Mid-American Convention.
He discovered biking quickly after, preferring its tradition, internationalism, and exploration of place, and dove in — the lengthy hours on the bike unknowingly constructing the immense cardio engine that powers his success in the present day. After faculty he bounced round jobs — working for a biking and journey firm in France was the spotlight — earlier than getting a grasp’s diploma in math and taking the job at Blair Academy.
Till not too long ago, there was no indication, no breakout efficiency or epiphany, that he would develop into one of many nation’s most promising and intriguing path runners. Will Murray — and those that know him — precisely describes himself as regular. His entry to the elite ultrarunning scene was something however. If he had been instructing his college students about his development as an ultrarunner — although he’s far too humble to do that — he’d use an exponential perform over a linear one.
A Promising Begin in Ultrarunning
The primary level on the curve would come two years in the past on the 2023 Silver Rush 50 Mile, a qualifier for the Leadville 100 Mile, with greater than 8,000 ft of elevation acquire throughout 50 miles. Murray completed second in that ultrarunning debut. “That was fairly eye-opening,” Murray mentioned. “I simply did so little preparation for it after which actually blew myself away with how I received by way of it, and I used to be like, Oh, okay, there have to be some potential.”
Will Murray after putting second on the 2023 Silver Rush 50 Mile, his extremely debut. Picture courtesy of Will Murray.
After the Silver Rush 50 Mile, he advised himself he needed to strive extra aggressive races and wrote them down amongst different scribbles in his journal: the Leadville 100 Mile and Western States 100.
His second-place end on the Silver Rush 50 Mile certified him for the previous, and so there he was final summer time in downtown Leadville, Colorado, lined up for his 100-mile debut on a rugged course that includes 18,000 ft of elevation acquire, all at excessive altitude — a race that’s purported to humble or break 100-mile debutants.
He received fifth.
In typical Murray style, although, he was much less impressed by his personal top-five end and extra by the record-breaking efficiency by males’s winner, David Roche. “To be in the identical race as David Roche doing what he did: Unimaginable,” Murray mentioned. “I used to be in one of many best runs ever. And I used to be nowhere close to him, nevertheless it nonetheless gave me confidence.”
Will Murray along with his pacer on the 2024 Leadville 100 Mile. Picture courtesy of Will Murray.
So he got here to Curran, his boss, with a pitch: Might he take two days off in the course of the varsity 12 months to go run the 2025 Black Canyon 100k, the place a top-three end would land him a Golden Ticket to the Western States 100? He knew it was a giant ask: taking break day for what he known as “trip” when lecturers have annual holidays constructed into their schedules. And that’s why he was not going “simply to see what he may do” or “to have enjoyable.”
“I wouldn’t have gone to the race if it wasn’t solely for the aim of attempting to qualify for the Western States 100,” Murray mentioned.
Curran is aware of Murray just isn’t garrulous. “When he speaks, you pay attention,” he mentioned. He noticed one thing in his trainer: a quiet confidence that subtly betrayed that he was about to do one thing particular. “If he was assured in himself, I used to be definitely assured in him,” Curran mentioned. “So, it was a simple sure.”
Ideas for Coaching
First, after all, Murray needed to practice, and to know how spectacular and troublesome it’s to run at a excessive degree whereas working a full-time job, take heed to Curran. “Working at a boarding faculty is sort of a 24/7 job,” the pinnacle of faculty mentioned, and that’s not hyperbole: Murray lives on campus, teaches Monday by way of Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to three:15 p.m., coaches from 3:45 p.m. to five:45 p.m., and at the least two nights every week both helps youngsters with math homework from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., or is on dorm responsibility from 7:30 p.m. till midnight. “But he nonetheless has time to coach and get this executed,” Curran mentioned.
Within the mornings earlier than faculty, through the occasional free hour he has on weekday afternoons, within the post-baseball follow runs at nighttime, throughout his lengthy runs on Sundays, Murray follows what he calls an “summary” strategy to coaching. He doesn’t utterly eschew the science of operating, however equally, he doesn’t get slowed down by it. As a substitute, he abides by three self-generated ideas to information his coaching: put in as a lot cardio work as doable, simulate the race that he’s coaching for, and modify the plan primarily based on how his physique feels.
Will Murray coaching in entrance of Mount Huge in Colorado. Picture courtesy of Will Murray.
He used this coaching methodology, radical in its simplicity, to organize for the Black Canyon 100k. And he knew after he ran a 3:29 50-kilometer coaching run in a snowstorm as a part of a key long term that simulated the course that it was working.
The Darkish Horse at Black Canyon 100k
The humorous half was that, outdoors of these closest to him, nobody else did. Emma Murray remembered studying articles and listening to podcasts previewing the Black Canyon 100k and being struck by one factor: None of them talked about her brother.
“I do know,” she mentioned, “they don’t know somebody.” Her confidence was solely buoyed by the look she noticed in her brother the morning of the race. It was a glance that mentioned: “‘Okay, I’m gonna’ do that factor,’” Emma Murray mentioned. “And I’m like, ‘He’s gonna’ do that factor.’”
For the subsequent 7 hours, 26 minutes, and 53 seconds, Will Murray did that factor.
After a chaotic begin coming off the monitor, he was fairly far again, however step by step made his approach to the entrance through the three miles of highway earlier than runners received on the Black Canyon Path singletrack. “The primary determination is the place you set your self on the singletrack,” Murray mentioned. “I didn’t need to lead something, however I needed to be on the entrance.”
And that’s what he did mainly your entire day. He took extra time than others within the lead pack on the Bumble Bee Ranch support station, simply earlier than 20 miles, so he determined to push exhausting on the climb out, a relative danger that early in a 100k, however in true Murray style, a calculated one: He knew there was a delicate descent after that may enable him to recuperate.
On track for second on the 2025 Again Canyon 100k. Picture: Grand Canaria World Path Majors/Howie Stern
Curran, watching the livestream and refreshing the outcomes web page from New Jersey, mentioned Murray ran the race “surgically.” He ran with no pacers and one crew member. Curran remembered seeing Murray come by way of an support station in the course of the race, solo and bloodied from a fall on the descent to Deep Canyon Ranch, and chuckled at his younger trainer’s lack of pretension. “He’s simply Will,” Curran mentioned.
After he crossed the end line in second, after he acquired his Golden Ticket from Thornley, after a number of folks got here as much as him asking who he was, after he accomplished the subsequent step in his meteoric rise, Will Murray celebrated along with his sister. They ate deep-dish pizza and acquired a big image body from Dwelling Depot to guard his Golden Ticket on the flight residence.
It was, Emma Murray agreed, a becoming ending to a basic darkish horse story. “Who doesn’t love that, you recognize?” she mentioned.
Why is Murray So Good?
Why is Murray so good? That’s maybe the subsequent query: Why is Will Murray, an unsponsored, full-time trainer, and relative newcomer to the game, so good at ultrarunning?
Murray, after all, had thought of this totally, and he supplied three causes for his success. First, he mentioned he can run quick on trails due to the coordination developed from years of taking part in different sports activities — a lesson, maybe, in not specializing too early. Subsequent, his capability for endurance was constructed by lengthy, sluggish days on the bike when he was youthful. And lastly, he mentioned, “the factor I’m discovering little by little is I can eat and drink so much.”
Past these technical causes, although, there’s the unquantifiable. Murray possesses a singular mix of steadiness and self-belief that makes him one of many extra mentally robust runners you’ll discover. “It’s an extended day on the market, and issues go effectively and issues go poorly,” Murray mentioned. “And the extra you may keep level-headed, I believe the higher off you might be.”
Each Emma Murray and Curran mentioned his comparatively tame scream and fist pump on the end line of the Black Canyon 100k was probably the most emotion they’d ever seen from him. “He’s so chill about the entire thing,” Curran mentioned. “He’s the perfect athlete on campus and also you’d by no means understand it.”
Celebrating on the end line. Picture: Grand Canaria World Path Majors/Howie Stern
What separates him additional, although, is that over the previous two years, when he has made a reputation for himself in ultrarunning, Murray has quietly developed a fierce perception in what he can do. “It’s form of like a snowball rolling down a hill: just like the extra you imagine in your self, then the extra you obtain, and the extra you obtain, the extra self-belief you may form of earn,” he mentioned. “You must earn the self-belief.”
Will Murray has earned it. And that’s the reason, in simply over three months, he’ll stand at first line of one of many world’s most iconic ultramarathons, amongst a number of the finest runners on the earth, and imagine as soon as extra. You belong, he’ll inform himself.
Will Murray believes that. Now perhaps everybody else will, too.
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