Along for the Ride
Olivia Murphy showed up for the Butler Road Race’s 2K field content to being part of the event. Winning was not on her mind until just before runners took off.
“I was standing there, waiting for the race to start and thought to myself, ‘Let’s go for it!’”
It may have seemed ambitious, considering Murphy, a resident of Mars, was pushing her two-year-old son, Cian, in a stroller the whole way.
But nine minutes, 25.62 seconds later, Murphy crossed the finish line to win the women’s portion of the annual event Saturday morning at Diamond Park.
“I’m a little surprised I won,” admitted Murphy. “You never know who’s going to show up here to compete. I was with my older son, Beckett, last year and we walked most of the way.”
The BRR is a family tradition for Murphy, a 2011 graduate of Butler High School. She was once the one being pushed in a stroller when her parents competed. She entered the event herself for the first time at eight years old and has now taken part 12 times.
Her husband, Sean, and Beckett also ran Saturday.
“Running has always been a meditative time for me, a chance to process things and be at peace,” said Olivia, though her competitive drive eventually kicked in.
“I wanted to see how far I could go,” she said.
She competed in the Boston Marathon in 2018 and a number of other local races over the years. Recently, though, she changed gears a bit.
“I backed off this summer, put in less mileage,” she said. “I wanted it to be more of a family thing.”
Morgan Kiebler started running in the seventh grade because, as she put it: “I thought I’d be decent at it. I played soccer when I was younger, but gave that up.”
One thing she did not give up was the lead on Saturday. The Seven Fields resident bolted to the front just after the women’s 5-mile race began and paced the field before claiming first place with a time of 32:18.12. Among 77 other runners — men and women — the only one to finish ahead of Kiebler was men’s champion Judd Covert.
She had competed here once before, in 2010, and remembered that the last leg is uphill toward the finish line on Main Street.
“I tried to do some uphill running to get ready for that,” said Kiebler. “I like this course. It’s out and back and wide open. The people were really supportive, cheering us on and that was nice.
“I run in marathons, too. I did the one in Pittsburgh in May, but this was my first competition since then.”
Kiebler said the weather was not optimal, even though her effort was.
“I like it to be cooler,” she said. “There was definitely a bit of humidity today, but that’s Pennsylvania.”
Running proved very beneficial to Kiebler, now 26. After graduating from Kiski Area High School, she excelled in indoor and outdoor track and in cross country at St. Francis University in Loretto.
