Morgan McDonald is back where he feels most alive: in the mud, in the mix, and with Mick Byrne again

Morgan McDonald doesn’t talk about cross country like it’s a side quest. He talks about it like it’s the original language of distance running: simple, chaotic, brutally honest, and somehow, the most fun you can have while “fighting for your life” through a mud pit.

Fresh off the World Cross Country Championships in Tallahassee, McDonald jumped on the Run With It podcast with Elise Beacom sounding like a guy who’d been reminded why he does this in the first place. The legs were cooked for a week. The emotions were high. The Australian team vibe was loud in the best way. And underneath all of it was a bigger story: after a long stretch of injuries and four years inside one of the sport’s most high-profile training groups, McDonald has changed coaches, and changed the way he wants to run his career.

Listen to the full podcast

Cross country is the point of origin

If you want to understand McDonald, start with winter.

Before the track times, before the pro contract, before Boulder became “home”, he was a school cross country kid in Sydney. He describes growing up as a “cross-country runner and a soccer player, and not really doing much over summer,” with track athletics not really taking hold until he was 16 or 17.

Cross country, though, was constant.

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In Sydney, he came through the famed distance running club Randwick Botany Harriers, cutting his teeth on the NSW winter circuit: the kind of environment that quietly forges tough, competitive athletes. RBH’s alumni roll-call stretches across generations of Australian distance running, and the club has long been synonymous with depth, toughness and success. Anyone who has raced the NSW cross country scene knows how uncompromising those events, such as the famed Willandra course near Nowra, are.

That was his base.

Track came later. Cross country was first.

Even now, as a 29-year-old professional who has been to World Championships, the Commonwealth Games and the Olympics, he sounds most at home when he’s describing a looped course, a pack of runners, and the feeling of being pulled into a pure race.

It’s why the pinnacle of his NCAA career still sits front and centre in his memory: winning NCAA Cross Country on his home course at Wisconsin.

“It’s just a pure race,” he says. “One men’s race, one women’s race. Everyone’s out there giving everything.”

The details are classic cross country theatre: a cold Wisconsin November, hard ground, then snow the night before — “a beautiful little layer on top.” Ten kilometres. A big pack. A long finishing straight. The last kilometre a blur.

For McDonald, it’s not nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. It’s evidence. Cross country is where he learned what he is, and what he can be.

Tallahassee: five loops and no hiding

World Cross in Tallahassee gave McDonald exactly what he craves: a check-in at the highest level, in an environment that asks a direct question and demands an honest answer.

The course was built for American style spectacle: five 2K loops with added features of sand, mud, a lagoon section, an extra hill, and the now-infamous alligator barriers (wooden, thankfully, but which almost made them worse because you had to jump them).

“It was very fast at the start — too fast,” he laughs.

At 500 metres he found himself alongside the athletes who would go one-two. He felt good. Then, lap by lap, the race became what cross country always becomes: a fight.

The alligator section sat at the course’s lowest point — his hardest feature — and it set up a repeating pattern: survive the barriers, grind the uphill into mud, regain rhythm, repeat. Five times.

McDonald finished 31st, third Australian home, and was “super happy” — not because it was perfect, but because it was progress.

After not racing for an entire year (his first race back being the Australian trials after last competing in early 2025) he’s measuring his season differently: slowly building “towards being the athlete that I want to be.”

He still savours the small victories. Hanging on when others came past. Kicking late. Picking off positions in the final 400 metres.

The green and gold matters more now

At this stage of his career, McDonald is clear about his motivation: representing Australia is the central project.

“That world stage is really where you can get the most out of yourself,” he says.

Cross country trips amplify that feeling. Smaller teams. Everyone racing on the same day. Less chaos than a track championships stretched across heats and finals.

Watching Australia win mixed relay gold from the team bus and seeing a teammate “blow the race fully open” was one of those moments that reinforced what’s possible.

And yet, even in Tallahassee, there was perspective. The senior men finished eighth as a team. McDonald felt they ran well, and still believed they could be better. That’s the standard he’s chasing.

Leaving On Athletics Club: a necessary shift

McDonald joined On Athletics Club in 2021, coached by Dathan Ritzenhein. The environment delivered what elite groups promise: world-class training partners, high performance support, and front-row access to global medal-winning preparation.

“If you’re going to make a change, make it now.”

Back with Mick, but not chasing the past

That change led him back to his college coach, Mick Byrne.

Not to relive 2018–19. Not to recreate NCAA glory. But because trust matters. And because McDonald made the decision to leave OAC before he even knew what came next.

He was injured. He had time. He spoke to other coaches. But with Byrne, there was no unknown variable.

“I knew how it was going to be.”

This time, it’s remote. McDonald remains in Boulder with partner Sinta, and the coaching dynamic is more collaborative. He has more input. More ownership. More responsibility.

He’s stepped away from Strava comparison and leaned into handwritten journals. He’s experimenting with structure – including double threshold sessions – which he now admits he genuinely enjoys.

Byrne’s guiding mantra is simple: Start early. Progress slow.

For an athlete conscious of age, injuries and unfinished business, it’s a necessary counterweight to impatience.

Unfinished business

McDonald is candid: he hasn’t yet performed at a major championship the way he believes he can.

Missing an Olympic final in 2016 by one place. Not quite delivering at the level he expects of himself.

“That’s definitely a chip on my shoulder.”

The focus now is long-term. LA 2028 sits at the centre. Commonwealth Games qualification and World Road Running Championships this year are part of the immediate horizon. The logistical complexity of qualifying from overseas is real — standards, rankings, early windows — but the intent is clear.

Everything is being shaped toward peaking when it matters most.

Full circle

There’s something fitting about the fact that this next chapter began at World Cross.

A return to the mud. To the chaos. To the pure race.

Randwick Botany Harriers to Wisconsin snow. From OAC training camps to handwritten journals. From impatience to “progress slow.”

Morgan McDonald sounds like an athlete who knows exactly where he’s been — and, more importantly, who he wants to be.

Cross country was where it started.

It might just be where the next great performance begins too.

🎧 Listen to the full conversation

This is only part of the story.

In the full Run With It podcast episode, McDonald goes deeper on:

• His year-long injury layoff — and what that actually felt like behind the scenes
• The mental side of leaving a high-profile pro group
• Why he’s stepping back from Strava (and what that says about comparison culture)
• The double-threshold debate — meme or method?
• His evolving relationship with racing domestically in Australia
• NCAA memories that still give him goosebumps
• The psychology of racing in front of family
• His “word of the year” dilemma
• And, naturally, “Chicken Boy” origins and chickpea wrap recipes

If you want the unfiltered version — complete with humour, honesty and the occasional tangent — it’s well worth the listen.