Newtown Native Wins At Lake Placid Marathon, Looks Forward To NYC Race

By Andy Hutchison

A runner in high school, it was the middle-distance track events that Micaela Hurley liked best. Only because of the encouragement of her coaches did the Newtown High School student-athlete participate on the school’s cross country team in the middle 1990s. Little did she know how far her distance running career would go.

“I wasn’t really a distance person,” she recalls, about 16 years later, after — ironically — not only completing her fifth marathon, but taking first place in the women’s field at the sixth annual Lake Placid Marathon this summer.

Completing a marathon, a 26.2 mile race, is impressive on its own. Winning, however, is quite a feat. The Newtown native and now 33-year-old lawyer completed the course in a time of 3:09.57 and took tenth place overall among 382 listed finishers. She also set a women’s course record, beating the previous best time by nearly ten minutes.

Her name isn’t the only thing to have changed since graduating from Newtown High in 1994. Micaela Hurley McMurrough (she married Jason McMurrough and now lives in New York City) has become quite the distance runner — if that fact that she has run five marathons didn’t give that away already. The mid-June Lake Placid run was something McMurrough participated in as a tune-up for the New York City Marathon this coming fall. She had no thoughts about winning or trying to take first place in the women’s field. It just happened. Actually, it unfolded in the final minute of the race when McMurrough finally overtook Samantha Garnet, of Monroe, N.Y., who finished in 3:10.46.

McMurrough attributes her success to a combination of the support of her NHS track coach Rick Medve and cross country coach Rich Pesce a decade-and-a-half-ago, the fact Newtown has so many hills she still enjoys training on (or up and down), and Greg Van Hoesenher, her personal trainer in New York.

McMurrough last ran a marathon in 2001. The two big ones she participated in were overseas, in Berlin and Paris when she was serving in the Army. Her previous best time was 3:56 in the 1999 Berlin race.

McMurrough says her trainer has had her doing a lot of strength work, weight lifting, and speed work that has paid dividends.

After high school, she did not run in college, but played basketball while at West Point. She got back into distance running and challenged herself with a marathon. Then another ... and another.

“It’s unbelievable. There’s no feeling in the world that you have when you’ve just finished the marathon,” McMurrough said.

After several years away from distance running, McMurrough found herself in a job situation that gave her a block of time during which to run. She now regularly puts in three to eight miles per day on any given weekday and runs a 10- to 22-miler on the weekends as she gears up for her next big race: The ING New York City Marathon on November 7 to raise money for Hope For The Warriors, a charity organization that helps returning wounded service members.

“I’m very excited to run New York because I always watch it on television,” she said. “I’m going to miss watching the leaders but it’s going to be fun being out there on the course.”

The 1994 Newtown High alum served in Afghanistan, earning a Bronze Star while there, during her six years in the military. She went on to law school at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Her parents, Michael and Lorraine, still call Newtown home.

McMurrough wants not only to complete the New York City Marathon, but to give to troops in the process. The Hope For The Warriors organization provides funds to fly family members to the bedsides of wounded soldiers, helps wounded warriors make changes to their residences to accommodate injuries, and fulfills “Warrior’s Wishes” for those who are severely injured (those who have suffered loss of limb, sight, hearing, traumatic brain injury, spinal chord injury, and severe burns).

The link to donate may be found in this article on The Bee’s sports webpage at NewtownBee.com or checks may be made out to Hope For the Warriors (with “M. McMurrough — 2010 ING NYC Marathon” listed in the notes line) and mailed to: Hope for the Warriors, 55 Water Street, C/O Business Mgt Office, New York NY 10041.