Belief: A Conversation with Will Murray, Second Place at the 2025 Black Canyon 100k

Will Murray stood below the orange dawn sky and believed.

You belong, he informed himself on the 2025 Black Canyon 100k begin line in February. It’s doable that the one different individual there who believed that was his older sister and sole crew member that day, Emma Murray.

Subsequent to him have been a few 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 unhealthy lacking two days of sophistication in the course of the college 12 months to be there.

You get to carry out immediately, his silent self-talk, rehearsed numerous instances, continued. Compete with your self to attain the most effective day doable.

For the following 7.5 hours, Will Murray achieved one thing near the most effective day doable. After 62 miles and 5,000 ft of elevation acquire, operating close to the entrance for your complete 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 below the earlier course file, set final 12 months by Hayden Hawks.

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 in addition maybe making an attempt to make sense of what he’d simply performed.

Minutes later, he acquired a Golden Ticket to the Western States 100 from its race director, Craig Thornley. “Good to satisfy you,” Murray informed him. “I’m Will.” Thornley smiled, shook his hand, and quipped, “I do not know who you’re.”

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 Let’s begin with the fundamentals: Murray is 30 years outdated.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 college 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.” Outdoors of Strava, he has no social media presence. He can communicate and perceive French.

“He’s the best individual I do know,” is how Emma Murray summarized him. “He’s like essentially the most mild-mannered, humble man: Teaches math, lives in a sophomore boys’ dorm,” stated Peter Curran, the pinnacle of college at Blair Academy. “He simply goes out and crushes races.”

Murray grew up in Georgia, enjoying baseball and operating cross nation in highschool, and had aspirations to run in faculty. He confirmed as much as the observe at 6 a.m. throughout his freshman orientation at Miami College to attempt for the cross-country crew. He was the one one there. The coach informed him he needed to run three miles in below quarter-hour after which watched as Will ran circles by himself at midnight. “I ran like 15:10 or one thing,” Murray stated. “And he gave me the information for the membership crew.”

Murray laughed at this origin story of a Western States 100 Golden Ticket recipient: a strong runner, relegated to the membership crew at a college 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 immediately. 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 have 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 stated. “I simply did so little preparation for it after which actually blew myself away with how I bought by it, and I used to be like, Oh, okay, there have to be some potential.”

Will Murray after inserting second on the 2023 Silver Rush 50 Mile, his extremely debut. Photograph courtesy of Will Murray.

After the Silver Rush 50 Mile, he informed himself he wished to attempt 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 season 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 presupposed to humble or break 100-mile debutants.

He bought 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 stated. “I used to be in one of many biggest runs ever. And I used to be nowhere close to him, but it surely nonetheless gave me confidence.”

Will Murray along with his pacer on the 2024 Leadville 100 Mile. Photograph courtesy of Will Murray.

So he got here to Curran, his boss, with a pitch: May he take two days off in the midst of the college 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 an enormous ask: taking day off for what he known as “trip” when academics 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 making an attempt to qualify for the Western States 100,” Murray stated.

Curran is aware of Murray will not be garrulous. “When he speaks, you pay attention,” he stated. 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 actually assured in him,” Curran stated. “So, it was a straightforward sure.”

Rules for Coaching

First, in fact, Murray needed to practice, and to grasp how spectacular and troublesome it’s to run at a excessive stage whereas working a full-time job, hearken to Curran. “Working at a boarding college is sort of a 24/7 job,” the pinnacle of college stated, and that’s not hyperbole: Murray lives on campus, teaches Monday by Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to three:15 p.m., coaches from 3:45 p.m. to five:45 p.m., and no less than two nights every week both helps children with math homework from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., or is on dorm obligation from 7:30 p.m. till midnight. “But he nonetheless has time to coach and get this performed,” Curran stated.

Within the mornings earlier than college, in the course of the occasional free hour he has on weekday afternoons, within the post-baseball follow runs at midnight, throughout his lengthy runs on Sundays, Murray follows what he calls an “summary” strategy to coaching. He doesn’t fully 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 alter the plan primarily based on how his physique feels.

Will Murray coaching in entrance of Mount Large in Colorado. Photograph courtesy of Will Murray.

He used this coaching technique, 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 future that simulated the course that it was working.

The Darkish Horse at Black Canyon 100k

The humorous half was that, exterior 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 stated, “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 stated: “‘Okay, I’m gonna’ do that factor,’” Emma Murray stated. “And I’m like, ‘He’s gonna’ do that factor.’”

For the following 7 hours, 26 minutes, and 53 seconds, Will Murray did that factor.

After a chaotic begin coming off the observe, he was fairly far again, however step by step made his solution to the entrance in the course of the three miles of street earlier than runners bought on the Black Canyon Path singletrack. “The primary choice is the place you place your self on the singletrack,” Murray stated. “I didn’t wish to lead something, however I wished to be on the entrance.”

And that’s what he did mainly your complete day. He took extra time than others within the lead pack on the Bumble Bee Ranch help station, simply earlier than 20 miles, so he determined to push exhausting on the climb out, a relative threat that early in a 100k, however in true Murray style, a calculated one: He knew there was a delicate descent after that will enable him to get well.

On the right track for second on the 2025 Again Canyon 100k. Photograph: Grand Canaria World Path Majors/Howie Stern

Curran, watching the livestream and refreshing the outcomes web page from New Jersey, stated Murray ran the race “surgically.” He ran with no pacers and one crew member. Curran remembered seeing Murray come by an help station in the midst 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 stated.

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 following 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 dwelling.

It was, Emma Murray agreed, a becoming ending to a traditional darkish horse story. “Who doesn’t love that, you recognize?” she stated.

Why is Murray So Good?

Why is Murray so good? That’s maybe the following query: Why is Will Murray, an unsponsored, full-time trainer, and relative newcomer to the game, so good at ultrarunning?

Murray, in fact, had thought of this totally, and he supplied three causes for his success. First, he stated he can run quick on trails due to the coordination developed from years of enjoying different sports activities — a lesson, maybe, in not specializing too early. Subsequent, his capability for endurance was constructed by lengthy, gradual days on the bike when he was youthful. And lastly, he stated, “the factor I’m discovering little by little is I can eat and drink lots.”

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 powerful runners you’ll discover. “It’s a protracted day on the market, and issues go properly and issues go poorly,” Murray stated. “And the extra you’ll be able to keep level-headed, I feel the higher off you’re.”

Each Emma Murray and Curran stated his comparatively tame scream and fist pump on the end line of the Black Canyon 100k was essentially the most emotion they’d ever seen from him. “He’s so chill about the entire thing,” Curran stated. “He’s the most effective athlete on campus and also you’d by no means realize it.”

Celebrating on the end line. Photograph: 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 consider in your self, then the extra you obtain, and the extra you obtain, the extra self-belief you’ll be able to form of earn,” he stated. “It’s important to earn the self-belief.”

Will Murray has earned it. And that’s the reason, in simply over three months, he’ll stand in the beginning line of one of many world’s most iconic ultramarathons, amongst a few of the finest runners on the planet, and consider as soon as extra. You belong, he’ll inform himself. 

Will Murray believes that. Now possibly everybody else will, too. 

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