Michael Murphy is usually a man who is on top of the details. Standards, rankings, qualifying marks, who has run what and where it might lead. That side of the sport rarely passes him by.
Which made it all the stranger that he first realised his run at the Valencia 10k in January had put him in the mix for a senior Irish vest while sitting on the flight home from Spain.
Murphy was beside Jack O’Leary and Jamie Battle when he saw a TrackAthletes post on X listing his name beside the European 10,000m Cup qualifying time. Battle had also raced in Valencia and would later be named on the same Irish team.
“I’m obsessed with the details of all the standards, the Olympic standards, who’s running what, whatever,” says Murphy. “I was like to Jamie, surely we do this? This is unreal if we get picked for this.”
The Tullamore Harriers athlete had always imagined his first Irish vest might come through a more familiar route, perhaps European U23s, the European Seniors, or the European Team Championships. Not because he had dismissed the 10,000m Cup, but because it simply had not been the path he had pictured.
Instead, it has come off the back of a road 10k in Spain and will now take him to La Spezia, a coastal city in northern Italy, for the European 10,000m Cup on Saturday, May 23rd.
The event brings together many of Europe’s leading 10,000m runners, with this year’s edition taking place at the Centro Sportivo Alessandro Montagna stadium. Athletics Ireland has named a 10-strong team, with six women and four men selected. Callum Morgan, Oisín O’Gailín, Jamie Battle and Murphy make up the men’s team, with Battle and Murphy both set to make their senior international debuts.
A breakthrough year
For Murphy, the call-up is another step in what has been a rapid but hard-earned rise over the last 18 months. He has been working with coach Robert Denmead for close to three years, with the early message being to give the process time.
“You can’t just switch training method and then four weeks later you’re this unbelievable athlete,” he says.
The first real signs of that work came through last year during his final year at DCU, where he completed a master’s in Business Management. The routine became tighter, the nights out became fewer, the double-threshold work became more consistent, and the results began to follow.
“I was seeing all these results and I was like, right, I am dedicated to this,” he says. “I wanted to see how far it could take me.”
The run of form began indoors. On February 9th, 2025, he won the 3000m at the Irish University Indoor Championships in Abbotstown. Four days later, he travelled to the Armagh International Road Race, running 14:01 for 5k and finishing 25th in one of the fastest road races on the calendar.
A little over a week after that, on February 23rd, he was back in Abbotstown for the National Senior Indoors, clocking 8:18.67 over 3000m.
Loving the big nights
By the summer, the progress had moved outdoors. At the Morton Games on July 11th, Murphy ran 13:54.85 in the Albie Thomas 5000m, breaking 14 minutes for the first time.
The time mattered, but so did the setting. Morton was a meet he had watched for years and always wanted to be part of.
“I always wanted to get into Morton Games,” he says. “I’d always went and watched it. When I got told I was in it, I was just like, right, I’m going to live this up.
“Running 12 and a half laps getting cheered on, hurting. I actually loved that.”
Three weeks later, he backed it up at the National Senior Track and Field Championships, also at Morton Stadium, finishing sixth in a competitive men’s 5000m in 13:59.68.
Reset and return
The end of 2025 was not as smooth. At the National Cross Country Championships, Murphy was coming off sickness and ran well below what he felt capable of. He had trained through it with the race approaching, but accepts now that a few days off would probably have served him better.
“I ran terrible at National Cross,” he says. “I just wasn’t feeling good whatsoever.”
That made Valencia in January less straightforward than it might have looked on paper. He had doubts about going at all, but Denmead and his Dad encouraged him to make the trip.
“I wasn’t going to do Valencia,” he says. “I was kind of nearly afraid to do it. Then Rob and my dad were like, look, you should go for the trip and run.”
It proved the right decision. Murphy crossed the line with a 28:54 chip time, while World Athletics lists his official 10km road best from the race as 29:00.
The difference came from where he started. Having raced on the road plenty of times before, Murphy felt that being a few rows back would not matter too much over 10km, with enough distance to work his way into the right part of the field. But when the qualifying mark was taken from gun time rather than chip time, the seconds it took him to reach the start line suddenly mattered.
“Luckily, I got in by one second,” he says.
The race itself had its own wobble. Murphy went through 5k in 14:17 and briefly thought something closer to 28:35 might be on, before a rough sixth and seventh kilometre forced him to steady himself.
“I was going to drop out,” he says. “Then I was like, what am I doing? I flew into Valencia. I’m not dropping out here.”
Building through 2026
Valencia was the result that put him in the selection conversation, but the early months of 2026 were not all plain sailing.
He returned to Armagh in February, running 14:16 for 5k, in another stacked field. It was not the performance he wanted, with a stitch hitting him around 3k, but it added another race to a period where he has been learning as much as improving.
A few weeks later, he returned to Abbotstown for the 2026 National Senior Indoors, finishing fifth in a hotly contested 3000m in 8:20.10.
Life around training
Away from the track, Murphy still keeps a fairly normal routine. He lives in Dublin beside Morton Stadium and now shares a house with Cian McPhillips, the Longford man who finished fourth in the 800m at last year’s World Championships in Tokyo, setting an Irish record of 1:42.15.
Murphy hopes the house can now turn into something of a high-performance setup, built around simple habits more than anything flashy. Cooking properly, sleeping well, training, recovering and having someone in the same environment who understands the routine.
He works four days a week in a primary school in East Wall and keeps Tuesdays free for double-threshold training. When possible, he links up with others living around the area and some of the DCU running crew for easy runs and long runs. The harder sessions are usually done alone.
“I’d say about 85% of my sessions are on my own,” he says. “At the end of the day, it’s an individual sport.”
That setup seems to suit him. He works off heart rate, pace and feel, adjusting the session where needed rather than locking himself into someone else’s rhythm.
Work banked
For La Spezia, the work has been built around longer efforts. Towards the end of March, one session stood out: four miles at 4:40 pace, two miles at 4:39, and a final mile in 4:32.
“We did a lot of the harder work earlier, so we wouldn’t have to play catch-up,” he says. “I feel like I have a lot of the work banked.”
Now comes the part he has been waiting for. His parents are travelling. Denmead is travelling. Morgan and Battle, two of his good friends, will be on the team. The school he works in knows about it. His family and friends know what it means.
“You’re trying to prove your point, basically, that you are an elite athlete,” he says. “Then you get something like this and it backs it up.”
There is pressure, naturally. It is his first senior international vest, his first 10,000m on the track, and 25 laps in a race where there will be little hiding place. Murphy knows that, but he is not trying to play it down either.
“I’m buzzing,” he says. “It means a lot for my family and friends.”
For Murphy, the emotion around a first senior vest is real, but the job is still simple enough. Get to La Spezia, stand on the line, and race against one of the strongest fields he will have faced in his career to date.