By Pierre LaBossiere
Peninsula Daily News
SEQUIM — Sequim’s Murray Bingham is keeping busy this summer.
He’s got a roofing job for the summer after graduating from Sequim High School. He’s also in full-fledged training right off the bat for his upcoming college career at Southern Virginia University.
It’s symbolic that his job comes after a season of reaching the top of his sport.
Bingham just completed a stellar athletic career at Sequim High School, culminating in a state championship in the 800-meter run.
Bingham not only won a state championship personally, but he was a huge part of the Sequim boys’ track team winning the team 2A championship late last month.
For all he accomplished his amazing senior season, Bingham has been selected as the All-Peninsula Boys Track and Field MVP, his second All-Peninsula MVP award of the season (Bingham was also selected as the boys’ cross-country MVP in the fall).
“He did everything he set out to do,” said Sequim track coach Brad Moore. “I give the guy a lot of credit, he set his sights high and worked very hard between seasons to get there.”
True, Bingham talked during cross-country season how he began serious training early last summer, knowing this was his final year of high school sports.
“I wanted to be the best I could be. I’m pretty sure I did that,” Bingham said.
Bingham wasn’t entirely satisfied with cross country. He won four races during the season, qualified for the 2A cross country meet and finished 13th.
“But, track ended the way I wanted it to,” he said.
In track, he simply blew the field away in the middle distances, dominating race after race.
Bingham won a staggering 28 races — he won the 800-meter run 10 times, the 1,500 once, the 1,600 eight times, the 3,200 once and the 4×400 (primarily with Alec Shingleton, Logan Laxson and Darren Salazar) eight times.
Bingham had 35 top 3 finishes — basically every single race he entered, he finished in the top 3.
Bingham won the league, district and state championship in the 800-meter run, breaking a Sequim school record in the process with his season-best time of 1 minutes, 55.13 seconds at district. He came in third at state in the 1,600 meters and with Sequim having already won the team state championship, he and his 4×400 teammates still went out and finished third in that event with a season-best time of 3:22.59, two full seconds faster than their fastest time all year.
Moore said that in addition to all the points he contributed to at state (Bingham earned 22 of Sequim’s 61 team points), Bingham set a great example for his teammates all season long with his hard work and attitude, though Moore added, “there were a lot of solid kids on that team
“[Bingham]had a great attitude, he’s really easy to coach. It was a lot of fun to watch him run,” said Moore. “It was easy to be a fan.”
Moore also said Bingham spent a lot of time and energy helping the Sequim team out with fundraising.
“You really appreciate those kind of things from a young man,” Moore said.
Bingham has had to work his training regimen around his roofing job.
“I training in the morning and afternoon [around the job]. I make it work,” he said. “My coach in Virginia gave me a plan. I was following it at first, but I had to modify it so it fits me better.” His sister has returned to town from a mission and said she will be his running partner this summer.
In past year, Bingham swam during the winter. He decided to take up wrestling his senior year. He said the swimming helped with his conditioning, but isn’t sure if it helped him have such a wildly successful spring in track.
“I enjoyed it more. It was a nice break,” he said.
Moore wouldn’t be at all surprised if Bingham has a lot of success at Southern Virginia. He said he will likely just get better at the long distances.
“Distance runners peak in their early 30s. His attitude and work ethic is in his favor,” Moore said.
Bingham will begin running cross country for Southern Virginia in the fall. In the spring, he’ll be running distance events. What events he’ll specialize in he doesn’t know yet.
“But, I’m sure we’ll figure it out,” he said.
