Photography by Simon Desrochers
Clothing provided by adidas
How did Cheryl Murphy achieve such remarkable road-racing success in 2008?

And then there is Victoria, B.C.’s Cheryl Murphy, who evinces no interest in paying heed to that particular law of nature. Case in point: last year, while the majority of her contemporaries were resigning themselves to sliding down the back side of the athletic improvement curve, the thirty-nine-year-old, part-time physiotherapist and mother of two went on a road-racing tear, breaking personal bests at every running distance she entered and notching some of the fastest times run by a Canadian woman—of any age—all year.

Is she filling her water bottles from the fountain of youth?

Victoria, BC's Cheryl Murphy placed among Canada's top female marathoners in 2008.

The fact that the race was a mere month and a half hence, on March 1st, makes what happened next all the more significant: She ran 2:40:12 to place second amongst women (behind winner Janet Cherobon of Kenya, who ran 2:37:27) and eighth overall. In doing so she satisfied the Athletics Canada standard to represent the nation at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin. Converting middle-distance speed, such as Murphy had displayed at her early-season eight-kilometre, into equivalent success at the marathon is notoriously difficult, even for those who have been training specifically for months. Yet Murphy’s impromptu debut in Albany represented an almost perfect conversion from the eight-kilometre time she ran six weeks before.

Murphy, it is clear, is not one to let the typical delimit the possible.

So the following month she was back at it, running a pair of 34:14 ten-kilometre races on back-to-back April weekends at the Vancouver Sun Run and Victoria Times Colonist 10k, finishing fourth and second, respectively, amongst elite fields. These results she followed with two half-marathon wins, first a 1:15:58 at the May 4th Vancouver International Marathon weekend, followed a month later by arguably Murphy’s most remarkable race of the year, a run that continues to echo around local running circles. On June 7th, at the Fontana Days Run half-marathon in Fontana, California, a race self-described as the “world’s fastest half marathon,” Murphy ran a sizzling 1:11:43, a time that must be disclaimed by an asterisk acknowledging the course drops a massive 2,125 feet along its 21.1-kilometre distance (making it uncertifiable for the purposes of official records).

Not content to simply run fast, in early August Murphy added road bike to racing flats and boarded a transoceanic flight to Geel, Belgium, to contest the August 12th Long Distance Duathlon World Championships, an event consisting of an eighteen-kilometre run, seventy-four-kilometre bike, and nine-kilometre run. Sharing the lead at the end of the first run, Murphy fell back somewhat during the bike portion, but stayed in touch for an impressive sixth-place finish, only three-and-a-half minutes off a podium dominated, predictably, by European specialists. (Multisport racing—and success—is nothing new to Murphy. In 2007 she finished in a solid 10:06:52 at the Ironman Triathlon World Championships in Hawaii, closing with a sub-3:14 marathon.)

Returning home, Murphy still had goals to chase, setting her sights back on the marathon distance and the Royal Victoria Marathon’s twenty-year-old women’s course record of 2:42:32. Though she narrowly missed that goal, her 2:43:01 still garnered her the women’s overall victory, a women’s thirty-five to thirty-nine age-group record, and the third-fastest women’s time in the event’s twenty-nine-year history. What’s more, that time, along with her March debut, left Murphy at year’s end with two of the top six fastest marathons of the year by a Canadian woman (Tara Quinn’s 2:33:57 at Ottawa’s National Capital Marathon in May topped the list).

Following such a meteoric season from an athlete who might herself be respectfully described as “seasoned,” it is understandable that there is no shortage of individuals who are keen to tap into Murphy’s training plan, nutritional regime, and coaching philosophy. Which of us in these days of diminishing returns wouldn’t wish to learn the alchemy that produced so many golden runs in 2008? But, as is the case with so many investments, athletic breakthroughs are often based on a background of due diligence and sweat equity. For Murphy, that translates into a history of running fast, setting records as a teenager while attending high school in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her winning ways continued, naturally, as a University of Manitoba Bison, adding Canadian Interuniversity Sport track medals to a growing trophy case. Moving west to pursue further studies, Murphy found continued success in the 1990s and early-2000s at both running and multisport racing before stepping away from sport to start a family. Returning to the roads in 2004, early results suggested the time away had done little to diminish her speed. She continued to run progressively faster over the next few years before taking a huge leap forward in the winter of 2008, dropping nearly two minutes from her previous best time in a regular early-season ten-kilometre race.

What had changed?

For one, Murphy had found a new training partner in notable local age-group fixture and running retailer, Phil Nicholls. In Nicholls, Murphy found a pacer and motivator that had been lacking in her previous training. “Running with Phil makes a big difference,” describes Murphy. “We’re compatible pace-wise. I didn’t push as hard before [meeting him], but now I’m digging deeper ... working off him. I stick to him as long as I can in workouts and, if I can keep with him in a workout, I figure I should be able to run with him in races.” Murphy describes another important change when it comes to her racing: “Motherhood has changed my focus. It’s not about me now; my two kids are more important. Now, I’m having fun—I just want to get the most out of my workouts and my races. There’s no pressure on results. ... [In college] the gun would go off and I’d be wishing I was somewhere else. I always loved running, but it was overshadowed by the pressure I felt.” Now, with that pressure removed, Murphy explains running the fastest times of her life as a function of more deeply enjoying her running, a state of mind enabling her to get that much more out of her legs.

Which leaves little to go on for the outside observer wishing to emulate Murphy’s successes. Her approach to training, for instance, unlike her racing, is anything but remarkable. No coach, no heart-rate monitor, no structured training plan. In the lead-up to her 2:40 in Albany, Murphy ran only four times per week to total a maximum fifty miles. Typically, such a week included a base run, a long run of one and a half to two and a half hours, a short intervals session (e.g., ten intervals of four hundred metres at sub-three-kilometre pace), and a session of longer intervals (e.g., five intervals of one mile at a five- to ten-kilometre pace) or a tempo run. In addition to her runs, Murphy maintained multisport fitness by swimming and riding her stationary bike trainer twice each per week.

In other words, she was running close to half the distance of her elite peers and with a fraction of the rigour and specificity (contrasted, mind you, by a complete focus and dedication). If you’re looking to find a magic bullet to explain Murphy’s recent results, you won’t find it on paper. Where you will find it, says Murphy, is off her shoulder, running at her side. “The single biggest difference in my running is running with Phil. At my level, it’s rare to find someone who runs the same pace as you, who can push you every day. But I’ve found that in Phil.” This compatibility translates to racing also, where a scan of finisher’s lists very often finds Murphy and Nicholls finishing back to back. The results are manifest, and not simply on the road. The past couple of years have brought balance to her life, reports Murphy, and with that balance has come a deeper enjoyment of her running.

What’s the secret, then? “Love what you do,” says Murphy. “Put your whole heart into it, get the most out of every session, every race. Enjoy every part of the process—something my kids have taught me. If you do that, you won’t be disappointed; you can’t be.”

It’s hard to argue with success; and, frankly, why would you wish to? If Murphy’s magic elixir is balance and peace of mind, perhaps we should all be lining up at the counter. Prognosticators endlessly look for the secrets to the success of runners from the east African highlands, pointing to the metrics of altitude, genetics, diet, etc. But they also acknowledge the largely unquantifiable benefits of being surrounded in training by their peers, pushing them further, and at home, where loved ones provide support and balance. Murphy, relatively late in her athletic life, has found those same things in her training partner and in her young family. Faster times have followed. May we all be so fortunate.

Murphy has every intention to continue her winning ways in 2009, setting her sights on breaking the 2:40 threshold in the marathon. She began her season with a 2:48:09 at the Rock ’n’ Roll Arizona Marathon in Phoenix, a great time that nonetheless left her disappointed. She hopes to make amends at a spring marathon later this year, considering races in Vancouver or Fargo, North Dakota. Then it’s off to Berlin to represent Canada at the 2009 IAAF World Marathon Championships. And afterwards? Like her training program, that plan is yet to be written.

About the Author and Photographer

Once a full-time writer and photojournalist, Rumon Carter has since answered the call of public service and now works for the BC government. Carter continues to write part-time in order to stay in touch with the sports, stories, and community that he loves. This year he plans to run, as the captain of environmentally minded Team Athena, both the Gore-Tex® TransRockies Run and TransAlpine-Run.

Simon Desrochers shot the cover and cover story photos of Cheryl Murphy. Living in Victoria, British Columbia, Desrochers is an international photographer who has spent many years in France, England, and Canada. See more of his work at www.simonfocus.com.

"Defying the Odds" was originally published in IMPACT Magazine's March/April 2009 Running Issue.