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garycohenrunning.com
be healthy • get more fit • race faster
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"All in a Day’s Run" is for competitive runners,
fitness enthusiasts and anyone who needs a "spark" to get healthier by increasing exercise and eating more nutritionally.
Click here for more info or to order
This is what the running elite has to say about "All in a Day's Run":
"Gary's experiences and thoughts are very entertaining, all levels of
runners can relate to them."
Brian Sell — 2008 U.S. Olympic Marathoner
"Each of Gary's essays is a short read with great information on training,
racing and nutrition."
Dave McGillivray — Boston Marathon Race Director
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Molly Seidel won the Bronze Medal in the marathon at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in August, 2021, the first medal for the U.S. in that event since Deena Kastor’s Bronze Medal in 2004. She finished second in the 2020 Olympic Trials Marathon in her first marathon. Molly finished sixth in the 2020 London Marathon in a personal best of 2:25:13 and fourth in the 2021 NYC Marathon in another PR of 2:24:42, the fastest time ever by an American woman on the course. She won the 2021 Atlanta Half Marathon in 1:08:28. Molly earned the Bronze Medal at the 2018 Great Edinburgh International Cross Country, helping the USA to the Bronze Team Medal. She was Silver Medalist at the 2018 U.S. Cross Country Championships. Molly competed for the University of Notre Dame and is a four-time NCAA Champion. She won the 2015 NCAA 10,000 meters outdoors, 2015 NCAA Cross Country and 2016 NCAA indoors 3,000 meters and 5,000 meters. Seidel is a seven-time All-American and six-time ACC Champion. She is a 12-time Wisconsin Division III State Champion at University Lake School with four wins each in cross country, 1,600 meters and 3,200 meters. Molly is one of four Wisconsin girls to win four straight prep track and field titles in two events and one of two to ‘four-peat’ in cross country. Her prep cross country exploits include winning the Foot Locker National Championship and earning a Bronze Medal at the 2012 Great Edinburgh International XC Juniors. She is a New Balance Indoor Nationals mile and two-mile All-American. Prior to Seidel, no woman who had won Foot Locker XC had also won an NCAA XC title. Her personal best times include: 3,000m – 8:57.13; 5,000m – 15:15.21; 10,000m – 32:02.19; half marathon – 1:08:28 and marathon – 2:24:42. Molly won the 2015-16 Honda Sports Award for Cross Country and 2016 Mary Garber Award as the ACC Female Athlete of the Year. She resides in Flagstaff, Arizona and spent over an hour on the telephone for this interview in the winter of 2021-22.
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THE BIG PICTURE Since it has been several months since the Tokyo Olympics, how different and exciting is it when you race, speak to running clubs or youth groups, and attend meetings such as the USATF annual meeting and have the tag line, ‘Olympic Bronze Medalist,’ and is it still a bit hard to process and fathom?
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I am asked that and initially it was very cool after it happened. It definitely has sunk in. The weird thing is trying to figure out what that means for me day-to-day and how I think about my own running. Honestly, it has been hardest for some of my friends. I have a friend who will say, ‘sometimes I forget about the medal because you are just you.’ It can be a bit awkward. I am trying to own it more because I struggle with that aspect sometimes.
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We will discuss the Olympic Marathon race in more detail in a bit, but what was it like when you approached the finish and knew you were about to earn the Olympic Bronze Medal, at the moment when you crossed the line, and how emotional was it afterward?
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When I was coming up on the line, it started to click in that last kilometer that I was fairly securely in the medals. So, I allowed myself to get excited. When I did have that guttural scream coming over the line, that was just raw emotion at it was finally hitting me what had just happened. We spend so much of a marathon keeping our emotions in check and focusing on what’s going on in the race. We aren’t thinking of the bigger picture, and it is moment to moment. To finally realize, ‘Oh my God, I’m winning a medal!’ I can’t even explain how exciting it is and the sense of relief and shock. I came over the line and my first thought was, ‘Thank God I get to stop running now!’ And it was so hot out that I wasn’t consciously processing how much I felt like a frog being boiled in a pot of water. I came over the line and felt ‘Oh, dear God’ and then it was absolute joy. A couple of our USA staff were at the finish. Tyler, our team manager, handed me the USA flag. Then it started to sink in – ‘Oh, my God!’
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As exciting as it is to race in the Olympics, first an athlete must make the team. I was in Atlanta positioned on the finishing stretch when you finished in second place in the Olympic Trials Marathon. What was it like as you ran on that slight downhill to the finish, crossed the line and knew you were an Olympian in your first marathon?
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That was unreal. It’s crazy thinking back and it’s almost two years ago now. That was the first moment after several years of being beat down, having many struggles and not knowing if I would be able to get back to running at an elite level again, especially after my surgery. So, it was that amazing moment. A couple of miles before the finish I was hurting more than I had ever hurt in my life in a race. But I thought, ‘You’ve handled so much more pain than this. You can handle a couple more miles.’ It was a sense of ‘Oh wow! I can’t believe I get to do this again and I can’t believe I get to go to the Olympics.
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After excelling at shorter distances on the track in high school and college, along with outstanding cross-country success, your increased post-collegiate distance training focus led to amazing and, perhaps surprising, marathon performances. Do you feel that a runner may not find his or her best racing distance, but that distance finds the runner?
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Definitely, in the sense that I had tried to make it work as a professional 10k runner and it didn’t work. I kept getting hurt. I wasn’t finding any joy and lost my love for the sport. Even to this day, I don’t find much joy in racing track 10ks. When Jon Green started coaching me, I started training in a way that kept me healthy which led me to the marathon. It wasn’t any preconceived plan. It just happened that we decided to run a half marathon to qualify for the Olympic Marathon Trials. We thought it would be cool to give it a shot. We had been doing that type of training to qualify for the Olympic Track Trials in the 10k that spring. In the marathon we saw an avenue to finally getting me strong enough and healthy enough to run strong on the track. I knew I wasn’t going to have the speed to make the Olympic team at 10k, so I would have to have the strength. I ended up finding the distance that I truly believe that I was born to race.
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You mentioned being coached by Jon Green, which is different from many top runners who join elite training groups or team up with successful, renowned coaches to increase their chance of reaching their potential. Can you explain how your coach, Jon Green, may be young and not have a lengthy coaching resume, but is the perfect coach for you?
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It’s so funny because recently there has been talk about ‘who is this Jon Green guy?’ ‘What kind of qualifications does he have?’ People will think the story is B.S. that the first person he coached happened to win an Olympic medal. It is doing a huge disservice to Jon and is a very old school attitude that, to be a good coach, you must go up through the ranks, be forty years old, and have coached at this level for a certain number of years. Jon comes from a space of caring for the athlete, straight off. He bases all his coaching off that. Number one, the athlete’s health and mental health come first. He looks at the athlete as a person and figures out what type of individualized training is necessary to be the best. He doesn’t have a method that he uses and then tries to fit us into that method. In that sense, he is enormously experienced in being able to read the athletes emotionally and physically and then build training around that. He doesn’t get stuck in a spot as legendary coaches like the ‘Jack Daniels of the world’ who have a coaching formula where you fit the athlete into that formula. Jon turns that on its head. We started together as two best friends trying to train. He listened to me and listened to what I needed. He saw me as a person and built my training around that which is why it works. I truly believe he is the best coach in the country because no one else is using this method.
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You’ve only raced four marathons but are ‘four for four’ in terms of top-notch outcomes with second place at the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials, sixth place at the 2020 London Marathon in a personal best by two minutes, Olympic Bronze in Tokyo and fourth at the 2021 New York City Marathon in another personal best. What do you and Coach Green do that has led to you being able to hit the physical, mental and emotional peak necessary to have these consistent great marathons?
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I don’t count London as my best performance, but it was a building performance. Every marathon was different. Every build up has been truly completely different from the other ones. That is the adaptability that Jon has. After each marathon, we take lessons to learn and build for the next marathon. Jon very much does not get greedy with trying to do too much. He keeps me in check and reminds me I need to stay healthy to race well. The biggest thing he does for me is to keep my psycho tendencies to want to hammer constantly reigned in. He also has been my biggest advocate for my mental health. Going into the New York City Marathon was one of the toughest three-month periods mentally that I have had in a long time. We had very frank conversations about not doing that race to preserve my mental health. Many coaches wouldn’t necessarily do that. Once we decided we were going to make it work, he was constantly with me not only to maintain my physical health, but also to maintain my mental health. He helped me find treatment and constantly checked in with me. That has been the secret – adaptability, meeting me where I am and constantly listening to me, wanting to listen and helping me grow. Jon is an intellectually curious person and is always trying to find out more by asking around. If he doesn’t know something, he is the first person to admit that and go to the person who knows so he can learn.
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You have struggled with obsessive-compulsive behavior, an eating disorder and anxiety which has affected you, not only as a runner, but in your entirety as a human being. How has your openness about this affected you and is your ability to have a platform to help others turning a negative into a positive while enriching your life and helping others?
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I have a complicated relationship with this. I first started talking about it before the Olympic Trials and almost nobody was listening when I did that podcast and talked about what I went through in college. It was therapeutic for me to talk about it. Obviously, it blew up after the Trials. I was the first person still running at an elite level who was open and willing totally to talk about these issues. It was complicated because I struggled with the openness and struggled with how much people wanted to talk about it. I’ve come to terms about it better as I realized that it is a complicated part of my story and a continuing part of my story. Hopefully, it will help people who are actively in a comparable situation. It is hard because sometimes I want to key in and focus on my race and people are coming and asking about it and constantly trying to bring it to the forefront. Yes, I’m someone who has gone through this, but I don’t want to be know as the ‘Eating Disorder Runner.’
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THE MARATHON ADVENTURE As you toed the starting line at the 2020 Olympic Trials Marathon in Atlanta, you were still primarily a 5,000-meter and 10,000-meter track runner using the race to build strength for the 10k, though you had raced a 1:09:35 half marathon to qualify for the Trials. What was your race strategy and goal and how did this change or solidify as you passed halfway and were in the lead pack?
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When we went into the Trials, we had no idea what to expect. We knew there were going to be high caliber women there. My goal was to try to stay with the pack as long as I could and, if I died, I died. The race went out somewhat slow because of the challenging course and I found myself sixteen miles into the marathon and knowing in my head that the race didn’t begin until those first two laps were completed. We went into that longer third lap and I was still in the lead group and thought I might surprise some people by getting a top ten finish.
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When Aliphine Tuliamuk increased the pace after about nineteen miles, how were you feeling mentally and physically and was there any hesitation to break away with her?
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We were coming down Peachtree and going up a hill and, suddenly, I’m leading the race. In that moment I knew I was potentially strong enough to carry through to the finish. Like most races, I don’t go in with a race plan. The race evolves and I feel out what is happening.
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Since you hadn’t raced a full marathon previously, can you describe the mental and physical ebbs and flows over the next seven miles as you went from being in the breakaway to making the Olympic team?
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On that day, it was like I was making it up on the way. The race plan kept changing as we went along. Even as late as mile twenty-three, I was trying to hang with Aliphine until the rest of the runners caught me and blew me away. And then that evolved as we got closer to the finish to where I had to prepare to get second place and be willing to go right then.
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When the Tokyo Olympics were postponed for a year, how did you manage the double-edged sword of the covid-19 disruption of running and life with the good fortune of being able to train for an extra year and to race another marathon to gain experience and sharpness at the distance?
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When we went through that postponement it was one hundred percent mentally difficult. We had to deal with the stress and anxiety of living through a pandemic in a major city and the stress of not knowing where we were going to train and when the next race would happen and not knowing if we would keep our spots on the team. Running was honestly the only thing that was keeping me sane during that time. I delved into that because in my core I love training almost more than racing. That was a big stability point in my life during an uncertain time. If the Olympics were held when they were originally scheduled in August of 2020, I would not have gotten a medal. That’s straight up honesty. I had not been running with enough consistency and did not have enough experience to have won a medal at that point. I probably would have gone out and gotten twentieth or thirtieth place. It was that extra year that got me that medal.
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We mentioned briefly the 2020 London Marathon where you weren’t too happy about your race. But, when we look at the numbers, how beneficial to your development as a marathon racer was that race where you finished in sixth place in 2:25:13 with very even splits of 1:12:26 and 1:12:47 and moved up from 12th place at the halfway point?
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I was frustrated about my performance because I didn’t feel like I raced to my full potential. Jon saw the race as super positive. He wanted me to go in there fully considering it as a practice run. I had messed up my nutrition at the Trials and got very lucky. So, it was an opportunity to nail in the nutrition, nail in what a flatter course would feel like and to get experience racing international competition. I looked at it hard on myself since I was three or four minutes behind Sara Hall. But Jon told me this wasn’t my ‘A’ race. We were focusing on the Olympics as my ‘A’ race, and he was happy with how I did in London. We used it as a trial run, and it definitely helped.
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In the spring of 2021, you lowered your half marathon personal best by a minute in winning the Atlanta Half Marathon in 1:08:29 on a foggy and humid day. How important was this race in getting you ready for racing strong in the Olympics in tough weather conditions?
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It was the perfect preparation we could have had. I had the opportunity to race a fast half marathon in not great conditions. Much of the preparation going into the Tokyo Olympics 0was trying to train in as miserable conditions as possible since we knew how bad the weather would be there. I needed to feel what it felt like to run very fast when there was high humidity. It was excellent instruction for what we had on the ground in Sapporo.
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It was a very warm day for the Olympic Marathon in Sapporo with 78 degrees and 83 percent humidity at the start and 84 degrees at the finish. What was your strategy and were you surprised it played out similarly to the Olympic Trials as you stayed in the lead pack which shrunk to ten runners in 1:15:14 at halfway and further dwindled to a pack of five by 35k?
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It was a bit different from the Trials because in the Trials I was in the lead pack, but I was just tucking in and hiding from the wind. In the Olympics, I knew that I wanted to go out in that lead pack and see what I could do. I had absolutely no interest in going out and playing it conservatively. It was very much the thought process that I was going to go after this and if I die, then I die. We went out and within a mile I was up on that front edge of the race. Throughout the first half of the race, there were points where I was able to control a little bit of the pace. That was strange when I was running next to the World Record Holder and the runners were letting me control the pace. I do think it helped boost my confidence a lot, especially later in that race when I felt, ‘I can race here. I’ve come this far. I’ve been making moves. I’ve been racing aggressively. I deserve to be here.’
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With less than 5k to go Kosgei and Jepchirchir pulled away while you continued running strong in third place. Were you primarily focused on maintaining medal position and were there any signs of weakness in your opponents who ended up only ten seconds and twenty-six seconds ahead of you?
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There are a million ‘would of,’ ‘could of,’ ‘should ofs.’ When I look back on the race, I can see things that I did wrong like running farther than I had too by not hitting the tangents perfectly. Or not being able to take my final fluid bottles. I could look to a million things. Could I have gone after them? Should I have done this or that? I think, at the time, it was so miserable and so hot, and being able to get back into that third spot was hard. I was focused on maintaining the pace as hard as I could. I don’t think I physically could have gone a whole lot faster than I was going at that point. And I have enormous respect for Kosgei and Jepchirchir and knew they were hauling just as much as I was. I’m very happy with how I ran that race. There were things I could have done differently but, honestly, on that day I gave everything I had.
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Rather than take a break from marathon racing, you raced the New York City Marathon three months after the Olympics and ran a personal best 2:24:42 for fourth place while recovering from two broken ribs and ran the fastest time ever by an American woman on the course, faster than when Shalane Flanagan won in 2017 and faster than Kara Goucher. How tough was it to get mentally and physically ready to race a marathon just ninety days after the Olympics and what are highlights of your gritty performance?
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That buildup for the New York City Marathon was one of the hardest buildups I have ever done. It was coming off the lead-in to Tokyo where everything was perfect, and we didn’t have any hiccups in training. Everything was smooth sailing before Tokyo. Then, like everyone does, there was a mental down dip after the Games. It was an enormously stressful and intense experience as we have a high high. Dealing with that is difficult. I had a very big mental dip and we considered at the beginning of the training whether to prepare for New York. We got back into it, and we had seven weeks to build. I knew it was going to be short, but we could make the most of it. Then there was one physical problem after another. I had the broken ribs. I fell very hard and got whiplash. That time was a mess. The Olympics were a hugely exciting time but, when I look back on my race at the New York City Marathon, it gives me almost as good a feeling. Everything went to hell in a handbasket in that buildup and Jon and I were able to work together and hash things out, work as a team and make something that turned out better than either of us expected. I knew after that race that many things could go wrong but, if we worked together, we could make something very cool out of it. But we had to be in it together. We had the lowest expectations. A week before that race we were wondering whether I would even be able to finish. I was in so much pain. Then when I got to the line all the expectations were off. Normally there would have been lofty expectations coming off how I ran at the Games. I didn’t even know if I was going to make it to mile ten. It freed me up to do more than I ever thought I could do. Confident isn’t the right word, but there is a sense of satisfaction, and I was smiling on the inside and very much on the outside too.
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BEGINNING RUNNING AND HIGH SCHOOL EXPLOITS Were you an active child who played a variety of sports, how did you start running and did you realize early on that you had a knack for endurance running?
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We were an outdoorsy family. We didn’t join travel soccer teams or things like that. My parents were very active. My dad and mom are elite skiers. So, they got me on skis from age two onwards and I was racing at age six. That was our main sport, ski racing. We had a hundred and fifty acres behind our house, so we were always running around and playing. I was also active in school. My parents gave us the freedom to do what we wanted to do rather than pushing us into anything. I knew I enjoyed running. We would run in gym class, and I was very good at running. But we didn’t have a track team at school. My mom let me join our church’s track team at the church where I had CCD classes. She didn’t understand why I wanted to run but was very supportive and would drive me on weekends to run. I started excelling. Even though my mom has never run in her life, she was enormously supportive of me running. That is why I love the sport as much as I do. My parents supported me but never forced me to do anything. It got to be one hundred percent from me.
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As we mentioned earlier, you won the Wisconsin State Division 3 Cross Country title all four years. With victories by 15, 27, 66 and 41 seconds, was it you against the clock or did you feel a challenge from Samantha Bluske your freshman year?
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That freshman year was the closest and I didn’t expect as much. I knew, going in, that it was going to be very competitive. Then I was able to break away with about a mile to go. I was alone for the last part of that race. I will always remember being on the Wisconsin Rapids course in the middle of this golf course and it is totally silent. Then this guy yells, ‘You’re the champion! Just go!’ It hadn’t keyed into my mind at that point because it was my first State meet. I thought, ‘Oh, my God! You could win this race!’ Then I came around the corner and everyone was cheering in an eight-hundred-meter straight line. It was wild. From then on, I felt like I had great momentum. I had great support and was able to go and get the championships. It was very fun. I loved getting to run in high school.
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There were Wisconsin State Champions in the other divisions who raced times that were plus or minus fifteen seconds of your times. Did you have a chance to race Gabby Levac, Morgan Sickels, Marya Haeglet, Allie Woodward or Alexandria Fons and, if so, were there any memorable cross-country or track battles?
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It was great, especially during track season. At my school, I was the only one on the track team for a number of years. I didn’t have anyone else to train with. The benefit was, if you were good, it was easy to get into the good cross country meets because it was just one more person. They didn’t have to let in another whole team. I was able to get into many races that a Division 3 school wouldn’t get into. I got to race Gabby Levac all the time. She was my hero in high school. I loved Gabby. She was so cool. Morgan Sickells was in D2, and Allie Fons was in D1, and I felt lucky that I got great racing experience at the biggest Invitationals in the State of Wisconsin. Once I started doing the Footlocker meets my senior year, I got to race everybody. It was great for building the racing mentality that I love. I’m not much of a time trial runner. I love getting to be competitive and putting myself against the other competitive runners.
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Since you mentioned how exciting it was winning your first State cross country title, your freshman year during track season you scored double State wins at 1,600 meters and 3,200 meters over Carli Kronstedt and Alexis Mikaelian. How tough was your first State track championship in the 1,600 meters where you beat Kronstedt by only one-and-a-half seconds?
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Oh my God, it was so hard. For the 1,600 meters, I didn’t have the necessary speed. In that race, I just gutted it out. It’s crazy thinking back that long ago at this point, but I remember the excitement of getting to race at UW – LaCrosse. For someone competing in Wisconsin high school track, that was our big time at this huge stadium. There were so many people cheering, and it was wild.
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The next three years you easily won both the 1,600 meters and 3,200 meters as part of a track double four-peat. Was it still exciting to win State or more of a relief and how cool was it your junior year to run a 4:51.54 State Record?
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It never gets old. It doesn’t matter how many times a win happens; it is still so much fun. Every year there is a new crop of runners. That is the fun thing about racing – there is always someone coming for you. That is what makes it fun – having to try and defend, keep trying to go after it and knowing you have a target on your back. Getting the State Record was very cool and meaningful, and especially at the State meet was fun.
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As great as it is to win individually, and you mentioned that for a while you were the only one on your track team, how thrilling was it your junior year when the Rosenheimer sisters, Piper and Maise, teamed up with your sister, Isabel, and you to place fourth in the State 4 x 800-meter relay?
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Of all the State medals, I have to say that was the most fun one. We made these shirts that said, ‘Team SeidelHeimer.’ I got the baton, and we were far back. I’m not an 800-meter runner and that was the fastest 800 meters I had ever run to try and get that fourth place. It was fun getting to do that after having been alone for such a long time and getting to do that as a team.
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Switching gears back to cross country, Erin Finn and you had an epic race at the 2011 Footlocker National Championships in San Diego as she took the lead on a downhill with six hundred meters to go, held it for 45 seconds, and then you charged past her on an uphill and held a 15-meter lead through to the finish. Can you take us through how the race developed, especially since you had raced Erin at Regionals, and the last two minutes of the race where you both ran like champions, and you prevailed?
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I’m a very good uphill runner and a terrible downhill runner. I passed her earlier going uphill and then she blew by me on the downhill. I knew that the finish was uphill so, even though it was demoralizing to be trounced on the downhill, I knew the last part of that race was going to play to my strength. I tried to stay calm and think that I had to reel her in and that I had time. It was all out up that last hill, knowing that I had the strength for it.
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Erin and you were named to the U.S. Junior Women’s team for the Bupa Great Edinburgh International Challenge in Scotland where the USA team included Aisling Cuffe, Katie Knight, Jessica Jackson and Katlin Flattman. How exciting was it to represent the USA with this talented group and to earn the Bronze Medal, and did Aisling help the team prepare since she had raced internationally at the IAAF World Cross Country Juniors previously?
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The fun part is that it was my first introduction to running internationally on that U.S. Junior team. It was so eye-opening to go from running in Wisconsin to, suddenly, running against the best British and European runners. Aisling is a great friend of mine. She hosted me on my recruiting trip to Stanford. I was her biggest fan. I loved her and she was such a hero of mine in high school. She was a freshman in college at the time and it was great getting to be on the team with her since she had so much more experience than the rest of us. She was a wonderful team leader. Honestly, she pushed us and said, ‘None of us are in season for this. None of us have specifically trained for this. But this is about team running and us working together to get this title.’ I credit the teamwork and us getting that team Bronze Medal to us all working together. That’s what made it fun as we were getting to go out and feel like we were a team in that race.
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As a prep at University Lake School in Wisconsin you won four straight State titles in cross-country and in both the 1,600 meters and 3,200 meters during track season. What does it say about your place in Wisconsin high school girls’ track and field history when you are one of only four athletes to win four consecutive State titles in two events while Suzy Favor-Hamilton and you are the only two female runners to win four straight State cross-country titles?
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I think it’s cool to go back and to hear these facts. These don’t factor into my mind all that much. I don’t dwell on them, though they are cool. But I don’t look back and rest on my laurels and think that I was a big shot in Wisconsin. It was an incredible steppingstone to where I am now. I look back on my time in Wisconsin track and field as one of the best preparations I could have experienced for my development down the line. So, I look at it as a terrific opportunity for me to grow in a healthy, fantastic way to become the competitor that I am today.
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COLLEGIATE RACING How did you decide to go to Notre Dame and how was your transition from high school to college in terms of living away from home, more rigorous academics and adjusting to a new coach
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I decided to go to Notre Dame because I had been drinking the ‘Notre Dame Kool-Aid’ since I was a kid. My mom went to Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana, and loved everything about that. I loved the girls on the team when I met them on my recruiting trip. It was a little closer to home than other options. It was about a four-hour drive, so my parents would get to visit and see me. They offered me a great scholarship and I thought them paying for my college was awesome. Some other schools weren’t willing to do that. So, it made sense to go to Notre Dame. The transition was an absolute kick in the face. I struggled with it. I wasn’t doing great mentally; academics were hard, and I was absolutely drowning. I was trying to do pre-med studies and it was so difficult. I didn’t run well. I was super injured. I didn’t have a great relationship with my coach. My first two years were not great. I was thinking of transferring out after my sophomore year. By the grace of God, we got a new coach when Coach Sparks came in and he absolutely and completely changed the trajectory of my running career. I will say straight up that I basically owe my whole running career to him. I would not be running professionally if he hadn’t come in.
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You broke out during your junior year cross country season with a fifth place at the ACC Conference meet and 19th place at NCAAs, only twelve seconds from a top-ten NCAA finish and then during your junior track season, you won ACC Indoor titles at both 3,000 and 5,000 meters while finishing first outdoors at 5,000 meters and runner up at 10,000 meters. What had changed mentally and in your training that put you into collegiate championship form?
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| MS |
With training, Coach Sparks was able to keep me healthy and to get me to start believing in myself. It’s like what Jon has done now. I think the best thing a coach can do is to get the athlete to believe they are capable. I did not see myself as a competitor any longer and didn’t know if I was going to keep running anymore. Frankly, I hated the sport. I was just staying in it because of the team. Coach Sparks saw something in me that I couldn’t see in myself anymore. He kept hammering into my head, ‘I think you can be better than this. I know you can be better than this.’ He got my head in the right place and that is all it took. He got me to believe in myself again. Having that great relationship with a coach and knowing the commitment to me as a person is what made the difference.
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| GCR: |
You followed up those great conference performances with an NCAA title at 10,000 meters, letting defending champion Emma Bates go with four laps remaining and then storming past her and leaving the pack of Dominique Scott, Emily Stites, Molly Grabill, Waverly Neer and Chelsea Blasse forty to fifty meters behind you. What was your race strategy, how did you feel during the first twenty-one laps in the big pack, and can you describe those last four laps and the moves you made to secure the NCAA title?
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| MS |
When I go back and watch that video, I am honestly shocked that nobody else went after Emma Bates when I did. There were five miles of waiting around. We were tempo running around the track. It was just waiting for someone to make a move. Then when there was a mile to go, Emma took off like an absolute rocket. She dropped a sixty-five or sixty-seven second lap – absolute kamikaze mode. I physically didn’t have the leg speed to keep up with her. But, when I saw Emma go, I was stuck in a box, and I still feel badly about this, because I kind of elbowed Waverly out of the way. I was thinking, ‘I have to get after her.’ I just went and tried to hang on as best as I could or at least keep slight contact. Nobody else seemed to go with me. I don’t know if they thought we were being crazy and would come back to them. Once Emma started to fade and I passed her on the home stretch, I had two more laps to go and, in my mind, thought, ‘Oh crap, what are you doing right now?’ It was that moment where I was trying to determine if I should play it conservatively and slow down to try to make it. I don’t know but it was that split-second decision – ‘No, Go for it!’ In my head I thought that at least I could say that I led the NCAA for four hundred meters before they caught me. And nobody caught me. It was wild!
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| GCR: |
Your senior cross-country season you won ACCs and Regionals before a stellar race at NCAAs as you controlled the pace for 4k, stepped it up the next kilometer and ran away from Allie Ostrander and Dominique Scott in the last kilometers for an impressive win. Were you clicking on all cylinders that fall and will you take us through that NCAA race?
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| MS |
No, I wasn’t because I had a very bad bike accident before that race and couldn’t run the whole week leading into that NCAA race. My knee was super messed up. The race plan that Coach Sparks told me was, ‘If you have to drop out, then drop out.’ Even though I hadn’t done anything all week, when I got into the race, I felt better than I had all week. Luckily, I was still super fit. When you miss a week of running, it is effectively just giant taper for the race. I think that when I got into the race, I was absolutely in shark mode. I smelled blood in the water. I had been training so hard for this and my goal had been to win NCAAs all season. I put everything out there. I turned that switch from someone who needed to sit in the back and, hopefully, outkick and win to the thought that ‘I can control this race, I am the top competitor in the NCAA and I’m going to go after this.’
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| GCR: |
The 2016 indoor season was a continuation of a great collegiate career and you capped it off with double victories at 5,000 and 3,000 meters at both ACCs and NCAAs. Were you just at a peak that was too strong for the NCAA competition as you beat your old high school foe, Erin Finn, by eight seconds at 5k and six seconds at 3k to secure the two NCAA Indoor titles?
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| MS |
I felt confident. Allie Ostrander was a tough competitor also, but she had a rough race at NCAAs. I had been clicking off good races all season and was able to go out and execute.
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| GCR: |
TRAINING What are the primary concepts of mental and physical training that you learned from your high school coaches that molded your development as a runner?
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| MS |
The important thing in high school is that we weren’t doing serious training. I was running very low mileage. I didn’t run at all in winter because I was skiing. The biggest takeaway that I had from high school was learning to love running. My coach, Brian Borkowski, had been my coach in middle school. Since we didn’t have a high school team, I asked him if he could write me up a training plan and, after he finished work, if we could meet up and just run. He was the dad of one of my best friends and we would run three to four miles together every day. He was such a relentlessly positive person. He would run the Boston Marathon every year and that is where my love of the Boston Marathon started. He loves running more than anyone. He taught me that running is a gift and running is fun. That set my career off on a good foot that running is primarily a way to be healthy and to enjoy yourself rather than to be about crushing the competition. He showed me that running was a joy, and I was lucky to be able to do that. That was my biggest takeaway. Mike Dolan was the cross country coach at the high school and also helped me as a young runner. We weren’t running anything that special. We would do 200s on the track or mile repeats around the soccer field.
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| GCR: |
What were your favorite training sessions in college as you stepped up to 5,000 and 10,000 meters, and now when you are focusing on the marathon?
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| MS |
When I got to college, I was training like a 1,500-meter runner which is the worst thing for my body. I don’t like repeats on the track at all. What Coach Sparks did that changed around my running career is he saw that I enjoy tempo running and I enjoy high mileage. He had me run very high mileage with tempo runs and strides. We weren’t doing any sort of repeat intervals. I stayed healthy and was able to run fast off unconventional track training. After the first couple years of my professional running career when I was going back to that serious track training and getting hurt all the time, Jon called up Coach Sparks and asked, ‘What works for Molly?’ He told Jon, ‘Mileage, tempos and strides.’ That is what we did in my marathon training - mileage, tempos and strides - those few things. It worked and now I’ve got strong enough to be able to do repeat miles and threshold miles. But honestly, I mainly do strong, steady runs.
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| GCR: |
How important and emphasized in your training regimen are other components such as resistance training, flexibility exercises, massage and chiropractic care, and do you try to get adequate sleep?
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| MS |
I have terrible insomnia. In fact, after this call I must take a nap because I’ve been up since about 3:00 a.m. Sleep is an area I need to work on. I get chiropractic care consistently. I have a guy here in Flagstaff, down in Phoenix, and a great guy back in Boston. I don’t do massage all that much. I have found after my surgeries that strength training is very important for me, especially high resistance for my bone health. I do nothing crazy or complicated. I try to be intentional with my training, but we go out and train and I don’t take things crazy, crazy seriously. I have a life outside of running as shocking as that might be. Obviously, running is very important to me but I try to balance it out with living a full life rather than only focusing on this one aspect of my life.
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| GCR: |
WRAPUP AND FINAL THOUGHTS You mentioned the love your Coach Borkowski has for the Boston Marathon and how you latched onto this feeling. How exciting is it to prepare for and race the 2022 Boston Marathon with its history, prestige, great competition and crowds?
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| MS |
It is super special for me. Having lived in Boston for four years and trained there, it is the place where I became a professional runner. It was the place I went after college after having a tough go of it at the end of my college career. I rebuilt myself there. It is a very special place in my heart. I trained on the course so many times. When I lived in Fenway, my main training run would be to run from my apartment down the marathon course in the opposite direction over Heartbreak Hill and down to Wellesley. I turned around at Green’s Hardware, which is Jon’s family’s store, and head straight back up Heartbreak Hill. The marathon is such a source of pride for the city of Boston. Add in that, from my freshman year of high school onward, I was indoctrinated into how special, how historic and how meaningful the Boston Marathon is. It has something special about it. I am going into this race, and I truly want to make Boston proud. As an adopted Bostonian, it means so much to be able to race it as a Bostonian.
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| GCR: |
You are young for a distance runner and could easily have a decade of competitive success ahead. What are your goals as far as improvement as a runner; racing on the roads, track and cross country; representing the USA internationally and growing totally as a person mentally, athletically, spiritually and emotionally?
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| MS |
It’s been an incredible last two years. Honestly, it is important for us to not get too far ahead of ourselves. We want to focus on sustainable growth rather than hitting it out of the park right away. That was the exciting thing about the Olympics – feeling that there are so many things where I still need to work. There is strength that I need to build. We had this enormous accomplishment, but we are still learning. We haven’t gotten to do the bigger, crazier things that we are hoping to do down the line. The fun part of working with Jon is us learning to do this together. Learning the marathon from each other and being collaborative is the fun part. It is so much fun getting to train and do these races. What I look forward to the most is I am hopeful to have a lengthy career because I genuinely love getting to do this.
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| GCR: |
We touched briefly on the struggle that you and many young, female distance runners have faced with eating disorders and OCD. For young runners reading or hearing this interview and their parents and coaches, can you highlight some of what you outlined in SELF magazine about using your support system, acknowledging there are factors you can’t control, the importance of boundaries, seeking professional help and evaluating recovery options?
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| MS |
A big part is that it is tough because there is so much negative messaging in the running world. This is a very difficult sport, and it is hard to not come away without some eating disorder baggage, no matter what your running level. An important thing is encouraging healthy body image and positivity at all levels. I feel very jaded with where the sport is right now in this area. I feel that until we have more positive messaging at the NCAA level and at the high school level that we won’t be able to keep girls from falling into the negativity. I don’t have many positive things to say about it because all the positive things for me have come after I got out of the NCAA system. I don't think there is a whole lot of positive body image going on in the NCAA right now. I am hoping that, at the very least, girls can look up to the pro runners and see that we fuel in a healthy way and sustainable way.
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| GCR: |
When you are asked to sum up in a minute or two the major lessons you have learned during your life from the discipline of running, being a part of the running community in many aspects, balancing life’s components and overcoming adversity, what you would like to share with my readers that will help them on the pathway to reaching their potential athletically and as a person that is the ‘Molly Seidel Philosophy of Life?’
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| MS |
Enjoying what you are doing is ninety percent of it. The times I run well are the times where I am enjoying what I’m doing and I’m happy where I’m at. That is what Jon figured out for me. A good thing is being in a good mental place. People should be surrounding themselves with people who build you up rather than tear you down. You should surround yourself with people who are invested in you being the best you can be. That is such a positive, especially for someone who is young and coming through. Finding the teammates and finding the coach that makes you feel that you can be better than you are today.
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Inside Stuff |
| Hobbies/Interests |
I love reading, playing music and driving very fast
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| Nicknames |
My brother calls me ‘Moldy’
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| Favorite movie |
I love ‘The Princess Bride’
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| Favorite TV show |
I love ’30 Rock’
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| Favorite music |
Alternative music. I like rap music, especially old school 1990s rap. I love ‘A Tribe Called Quest.’ My musical taste is very eclectic, and it depends on the day
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| Favorite books |
I love any surrealist literature. I’m a big Haruki Murakami fan. Kazuo Ishiguro. I’m reading Hari Kunzru’s ‘Red Pill’ right now which is good. Anything that is weird and trippy
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| First car |
A Subaru Impreza that I named ‘Sooby Roo’
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| Current car |
A Toyota Charity Pro Forerunner which has been very fun
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| First Jobs |
I babysat, worked at a coffee shop, was a sailing instructor and worked at odd jobs. I worked at the Milwaukee Public Museum for a while. There is a laundry list of the jobs I worked over the years
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| Family |
My mom and dad are the two most fun people that I know. They are way more fun than I am. My mom is continually being kicked out of bars for dancing on the bar. They keep it interesting
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| Pets |
We had a lot of pets. We always had yellow Labrador retrievers. One had eight puppies when I was little. We had a lot of chickens. I have a cat named ‘Mr. Banks’
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| Favorite breakfast |
I love toaster waffles. Eggo toaster waffles are so good
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| Favorite meal |
Sushi. Hands down. I love sushi
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| Favorite beverages |
Beer. Being from Wisconsin, we have a Leinenkugel’s canoe that we won at an auction at the Piggly Wiggly grocery store. I love Leinenkugel’s
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| First running memory |
My dad took me out on the 150 acres behind our house and told me, ‘I’m going out and running for a mile if you want to come.’ So, I ran with him and almost beat him
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| Running heroes |
Deena Kastor, Shalane Flanagan, Molly Huddle, Desi Linden and Kara Goucher. I looked up to all of them and still look up to them so much
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| Greatest running moments |
Winning Footlocker Nationals my senior year in high school was very cool. It was very special. That first NCAA Championship in the 10k will always stand out in my mind as the most special of all my NCAA wins. One of the most special moments was after my surgery in 2018 when I had to take off six full months of running and I was given a fifty-fifty chance of ever being able to run competitively again. That first race I was able to do was a full year later when I raced the B.A.A. 10k. It was special since I didn’t know if I would ever be able to run fast again and to get that feeling. It wasn’t, by any means, my best performance, but I knew that I could do this again
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| Worst running moment |
My junior year in high school, the first time I did the Footlocker Regionals in cross-country, I got eleventh place and that was one of the most gut-wrenching races I have had. I went in firing on all cylinders but got very sick a week before the race. I missed going to Nationals by one spot. It was a good instruction that you can do everything right and sometimes it doesn’t work out in you favor. Frankly, shit happens. I had to refocus the next year. I think that getting eleventh in Regionals was the reason I was able to win Nationals the next year. The lesson is to always remember that disappointment and to always remember how deeply you want it and how hard you worked for it. Being able to go from the lowest low of missing Nationals by one spot and to channel that was great
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| Childhood dreams |
The only thing I wanted to be was a runner
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| Funny memory one |
Jon and I did a joke training video before the London Marathon. We had this idea because the London Marathon in 2020 was the ‘Pandemic London Marathon’ and we had to run nineteen one-mile laps around Buckingham Palace. We thought it would be a joke that all my training was practicing turning right and that we were doing a thirteen-mile run around a traffic circle. So, we went up to this roundabout just north of Flagstaff and were running in circles around this traffic circle over and over again. Many people thought that was a real training session. It was very funny, and I enjoyed doing that for people to get a laugh
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| Funny memory two |
Obviously, the Olympics are a very intense experience, and everyone is so keyed in. I naturally approach races differently. I’m talkative and we were playing music and having fun. It was a very difficult, emotional experience with the stress of the Games. Aliphine Tuliamuk had her baby there with her. Luckily, Aliphine and Sally Kipyego are too of my very good friends. Jon was also there. We were legitimately having a lot of fun. We were enjoying ourselves and laughing. All the other teams were so very serious. I think they kind of looked at us like ‘These guys can’t be serious about what they are doing. They’re laughing. They’re all smiling and working together in their workouts when they should be straight-faced and hammering.’ My secret is going in and having fun and feeling relaxed rather than being so serious about everything. It was funny how these other runners thought we were absolute mess ups. We enjoyed being with each other and the whole experience of the Games
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| Embarrassing moment |
I embarrass myself daily. We may need to be more specific! A good one that I’ve never talked about is that it’s been a thing that I had a big crush on the British runner, Callum Hawkins, who was at the Games. And my coach, Jon, knows this very well. We were in our quarantined dining hall and Jon says, ‘Hey, Callum is over there. Should I go and introduce you?’ I said, ‘Jon, don’t you blankety-blank dare!’ So, he gets up and heads straight for the table. Jon puts his hand out and I’m saying, ‘Oh my God… he’s not going to.’ And he shakes the hand of the guy next to Callum who he had been on a junior team with when they were younger. Jon knew the exact way to embarrass me
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| Confirmation name |
I am confirmed, but because I was doing ski practice and Confirmation come right in the middle of ski season, I missed many Confirmation classes. Part of that was the day that we were supposed to select our Confirmation name. So, technically my Confirmation name is my normal name of Molly Elizabeth because they had to put something down on the paperwork to use. I was not a great C.C.D. student. I know Molly is not a Saint’s name, but my mom says, ‘It’s just not a Saint’s name yet. You have to make it.’ I think I swear too much for that to be a reality, but my mom has the best of intentions with that thought
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| Favorite places to travel |
I am huge road-tripper. Each year, I do the trip between Wisconsin and Flagstaff. I love travelling around Colorado. That’s where my dad’s family is from, up around the Aspen area. I like to travel around the desert in Arizona and to go camping. I love being in Wisconsin and love Boston. Internationally, I love England. I spent quite a bit of time in Ethiopia. I also like Argentina and spent quite a bit of time there when I was in college and studying archaeology. I’ve never been to continental Europe and that is someplace I would like to explore
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