Steve Murdock
11/12/2006
Right off the line, the highly anticipated Boys AA Championship was quickly down to a 2 man battle. Tommy Gruenwald (Fayetteville – Manlius) and Steve Murdock (Shenenedehowa) broke away from the field with a very fast 4:28 first mile.

Sitting back about 20 meters off the fast early pace was defending champ Brian Rhodes-Devey(Guilderland), banking on the fast starting duo crashing and burning and being able to pick up the pieces. As the two leaders flew past the 1-3/4 mile post, Murdock made his bid for victory and opened up daylight over Gruenwald, the new Van Cortlandt Park course record holder, and seemed to be headed to a runaway victory with 1200 meters to go.

Coming down the final 200 meter straight, it looked as if the warm weather was starting to get to Murdock as Gruenewald began to close, but Murdock (who lost the 2005 championship in the final steps to Rhodes-Devey) would hold on for the win.

Regarding his win Murdock said, I was 4:26 for the mile, and 9:26 for the 2 mile, and then I kind of fell off pretty bad.” That falling off allowed Gruenwald to start to close, but Murdock did not really notice. “ I really had no idea, I was in so much pain coming in. I have had this stomach virus and all during the race I felt bad I just wanted to finish pretty much.”

Murdock felt racing the course prior to the race was an advantage over the competition. "A lot of people here have not raced here before, and I could see it in my head better than they could, so I probably had an advantage."

Beating a top field once again makes Steve a favorite heading for Footlocker.

We salute Steve, as the BreakThru Athlete of the Week once again for his efforts.
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