Emma Boaz

Run Like The Wind! Maddox Murry (8th) runs at a cross country meet on September 25. He ran his hardest, and just locked in, just like at every meet. “My brain just stops and my body just operates itself and somehow navigates [itself] like autopilot,” Murry said.

Whether it’s running every morning, or at a meet for school, or even at the Junior Olympics on the other side of the country, eighth grader Maddox Murry is always running his hardest.

Murry has been running in cross country for almost eight years now, and it’s just a part of his life now.

“I started it, began to really like running, and so I stuck with it,” Murry said. Running has become a part of his regular routine, saying he tries to go for a run every day, all with the hopes to meet his goals each and every meet he goes to.

“A goal I had this past season was to PR in each meet. [I] Just kept my training up,” Murry said.

This is how he got his fastest time at a meet this season, but that’s not the only reason why he met it. He says that his family had a little something to do with it. 

“[My] fastest time for a two mile meet was ten minutes 35 seconds. One, because I like to run, and two because I wanted to make my family proud,” Murray said.

  Although he has had such a successful middle school career, he has faced quite a few challenges, including an injury that ended his 2023 season early.

“The biggest effect was two years ago when I injured my knee in a race. [It] left me out of cross country and track for the rest of the year,” Murray said.

Even though that injury threw his season out the window, he didn’t let that stop him, claiming that as soon as his leg got better, he got back to training to make up for the time it made him lose.

“I really had to build myself back up the next year, and then had to improve from there,” Murray said

  Aside from injuries, he has had a few races that did not make it on to his list of favorite memories from cross country, including a race at the Junior Olympics.

“[My] most challenging race was in Madison, Wisconsin. I was there because I qualified from regionals, so I would compete with kids from around the country for the Junior Olympics. The weather and terrain weren’t fun. I’m pretty sure it was like eight to ten degrees out, and it felt like the negatives. We were running through like two to three inches of snow, and it didn;t help that I had just stepped in a puddle before. [I] was just yelling at myself in my head ‘Just keep running’. The faster I can finish, the faster I can get warm. I came in around 124th out of about 300 kids,” Murray said.

That that race was one of, if not the most challenging meet he’s ever raced in.

  Despite having his fair shares of rough seasons, Murry says that that’s not gonna stop him from meeting even more goals in high school, and even maybe college.

“Some goals for high school and college, I want to break a record. Just some kind of record, [such as] fastest time at state for my gender and grade,” Murry said.