Athlete Spotlight: 2015 3A Champ Logan Murray Preps for Post-Season

School/Mascot/Graduation year - Mount Pleasant High School, Panthers, 2017

Age - 18

Height - 5'7"

Favorite race distance?

5K

XC or Track?

XC

Most inspiring athlete?

Steve Prefontaine

Favorite professional runner?

Matt Centrowitz or Eric Jenkins

Favorite professional sports team?

Boston Celtics

Quote that inspires you?

"Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it." - Steve Prefontaine

Favorite route to run and/or favorite course to race?

My favorite route would be our lake laps that we do for workouts sometimes. My favorite course would have to be Fairfield's course.

 

 

 

As the reigning 3A State Champion, what were your goals going into this season?

Well, I missed the track season due to an injury in both of my feet, and I had to train a lot differently and make sure that I got healthy before I could worry about doing any real training. But, I got in some decent training anyways and I was really just looking to have fun with everything. It's my last go-around for XC and I wanted to enjoy the team, my coaches, and the races. If I don't have fun then it's not worth it to me, so that was honestly the biggest thing. However, I knew I was going to fight hard to repeat my success from last year, there's a lot of talented runners this year so I know I will have to be on my A-game.

 

How have your coaches and team helped you develop into a successful athlete?

My coaches and my teammates are the reason I am where I'm at today! My coach is the best coach in the state of Iowa in my opinion (He is going to kill me when he sees this, he hates when I say that), and without him and his perspective I would have burnt out a long time ago. Also my dad helps me out a lot at home, and has always been there running alongside me and giving me motivation and confidence to do what I do. My teammates are my brothers... We have such a good group and we've become a family. They push me everyday in practice, give me motivation, keep things relaxed, and also keep me from getting a big head. Especially Adam Bodenham, he's got a knack for knocking me down a little after I get fired up.

 

What part of training has benefited you the most?

I think learning how to be a smart runner has helped me the most. I used to be the kid who thought you had to run as many miles a week as possible, and as hard as you could every rep of your workout in order to be good. After four years, my coach's advice finally sunk in and I learned how to run the correct way. Coach Anderson always says, "Sometimes, Logan, it's not what you do, it's what you don't do," meaning you can do too much and hurt yourself, or you can find that sweet spot and benefit from it.

 

What are you hoping to accomplish this Championship season?

            We've got a really good team this year and we have been putting together some good races. The ranking committee hasn't really felt that what we've done is enough compared to other teams, so we are ready to go prove how good we are. We are definitely looking to finish as high as we can, but we know that there are a lot of really fast teams that can finish up there this year. Personally, I just want to go run as fast as I can, see who wants to hang, and enjoy the last ride.

 

What are your plans for running after high school?

            I'm looking into some schools right now, and definitely looking to run at the next level. I have it narrowed down to several schools, but I don't know where I'm going to go or even what I'm going to study. I really like the idea of coaching someday, so that could be something I look into!

 

Anything else we should know about you?

            Every year in the winter my teammates and I go run on this lake when it freezes over. Last year though, we got out to the middle of it, and apparently it wasn't frozen enough because it started cracking... We sprinted/belly crawled our way off of it but it definitely freaked me out!