Interview with Molly Huddle

By Brooke Edwards

Saturday’s Continental Airlines Fifth Avenue Mile will be Molly Huddle’s  first one-mile race since she turned pro this past summer. Huddle spent much of her summer in Europe, where she competed in the 1500, 3000, and 5000 on the track circuit.  On September 16, she finished fourth at the CVS Caremark Downtown 5K (the USA 5K Road Championships) in 15:48.

Huddle, 23, had a successful career as a student athlete. In 2002, as a senior at Notre Dame High School in Elmira, New York, Huddle won the Nike Indoor Classic, was the Nike Athlete of the Year, and set a national high school record for the 2- mile with a 10:01.08 at the adidas Outdoor Track & Field Championships.

S he went on to attend Notre Dame University in Indiana—the alma mater of both her father and her uncle. While there, she was a nine-time All-American, won nine Big East Championship titles in the 5K and the 10K, and led Notre Dame to its first outdoor championship. Huddle graduated in 2006 with a degree in biology, and returned for a year of graduate school to finish up her NCAA eligibility.

Now, as a professional runner sponsored by Saucony and training with some of the top women in the world at Run Providence, Huddle remains humble but optimistic about her future as a professional athlete.

Editor's Update Huddle ran an impressive race, finishing in tenth with a time of 4:39.2.

Fast-Women.com: Congratulations on a successful first few months as a professional runner. Has it been what you expected?

Molly Huddle: I didn’t really know what to expect, but it went a lot better than I imagined. So I guess I’d say it exceeded my expectations. It’s exciting and I like it. I was afraid of getting too bored, but I’m not.  Just having [running] as the full thing that I concentrate on every day… I was a little worried about that. But it’s been great, actually.

FW: How does Ray Treacy’s coaching compare to what you got from your dad and from your Notre Dame coach, Tim Connelly?

MH: His workouts are similar to the workouts I was doing in school, so it’s not a huge adjustment there. And the bonus here is just having a big group of women to run with and do the hard workouts with. And obviously with his track record, I had a lot of confidence in him before even meeting him, so that was nice.

FW: What is your training routine like now? What type of mileage and pace have you been doing?

MH: I’m not doing a lot more mileage than what I was doing before. Pretty much I’ll do a longer run in the morning, eat some lunch, hang out around the house, and then do a shorter run in the evening, and then eat dinner... [laughs]. It’s been really relaxed since I got home.

FW: And what is a long and short run for you?

MH: I’ll do six or seven [miles] in the morning and three at night and on recovery days. Or we’ll work out in the late morning, usually not more than three miles [hard running]. We might do two and a half or three on the track, and then in the afternoon another three miles. That adds up to about 70 miles a week, but spread out.

FW: You broke two bones in your foot during your junior year at Notre Dame. Are you completely recovered now, physically and mentally, from the injuries and the setbacks they caused?

MH: Yeah, I think I am. I kind of keep an eye out for things creeping up on me, especially with my foot. But it seems like it’s all going well right now. I seem to be over it. I have a few muscle imbalance issues that aren’t really that bad, but just small things to work on. I was last injured in the winter, so I feel like I’m finally getting the racing mindset back and finally starting to feel like my old self.

FW: And is the 5K still your favorite race?

MH: Yes, it is. I’m still the most comfortable with it. At first I felt like I didn’t have much more room to improve, but I feel like after going to Europe and getting in a different type of race, maybe I can stick with that race. I thought I’d have to move up, but maybe not now. I have run a few more 10Ks this year too, but they haven’t really grown on me yet. I still get tired! [laughs]

FW: How was it to race on the European track circuit?
MH: It gave me some confidence. The races were just like time trial-type races, where you don’t really think. You just kind of get in the pack and go. And you don’t really learn much from that but you gain confidence from it. You learn not to let other people’s PRs scare you. And it was good to race a lot of weeks in a row because I felt like I wasn’t quite in shape yet and I needed to get more races under my belt. The races also got me a little closer to some standards that I wanted to hit.

FW: And you made two PRs while you were there?

MH: I did. I PRed in the 5K [15:17.13 ] and then I PRed in the 1500 [4:13]by quite a bit. So I’m happy with those.

FW: Did you feel those coming, or did they take you by surprise?

MH: I actually was really surprised, especially with the 1500 PR . I think I had just set a PR of 4:17 earlier in the spring and I didn’t think I could go much faster than that because I don’t really think of myself as having a lot of leg turnover and I’m bad with tactics. So I thought that would get me in the 1500. But then I just got into a fast race and that was surprising. And that helped me in 5Ks that I ran later and I had more confidence in pulling a kick out of somewhere in the end.

FW: This will be your first appearance at the Continental Airlines Fifth Avenue Mile. What made you decide to come out for this race?

MH: Amy Mortimer is also running it and she’s running here in Providence and I run with her a lot. Our coach had decided that she would do it. A lot of the other girls were still over in Europe or just uncertain about doing it. So I think he just thought, You’re here, you’re back from Europe, you’re still kind of fresh and don’t need a break yet, why don’t you just jump in? I honestly didn’t think not being a miler that I would have a good chance of getting into the race and being competitive, but now I’m excited because it’s pretty prestigious and just looks like a lot of fun. I’m glad he decided to have me look into that.

FW: And aren’t you and Amy Mortimer roommates?

MH: Yeah, we live together.

FW: Amy has ru n the Fifth AvenueMile once before. Have the two of you talked at all about the race?

MH: Yeah, we talked about it a little bit. And I went online and looked at some results from last year, because I didn’t really know what to expect.

FW: Are the Run Providence women competitive with each other?

MH: Well, I ran with them when I was in Europe for that month and I wasn’t doing a lot of the same workouts. And a lot of them, like Mary Cullen and Roisin McGettigan, aren’t here yet and Kim [Smith] just got home not long ago. So I haven’t run with everyone at once and I haven’t had a workout with everyone. But it helps that we’re all from different countries. We’re not running for the same team and that helps. It’s a good environment.

FW: Before a race your freshman year, you wrote down an exact time for yourself and hit it. What time would you write for this race?

MH: Well, let’s see… I would love to run like 4:30, 4:32 range. I don’t think I’m ready to do that right now.  But I might as well aim high. I would be really happy with that. But I’m going to focus a lot more on place. I just don’t want to be near the back. I’m not in mile shape right now, so I think it’s going to feel more uncomfortable to me. But I’m just going to stick my nose in there. I’ll probably start off slower and try to get by on strength. And if the time comes, then that’ll be nice.

FW: And just in case you do happen to hit that time and win it, do you ever think about the prize money or—like with this weekend—the free miles from Continental Airlines? Do you ever think about what you would spend that money on or what you’d do with those miles?

MH: Yeah, I’ve only run in a few races where there was significant money on the line, l ike the CVS [Caremark Downtown] 5K. And there was a race in Europe where I was close to a time bonus. Those were the first races where I could actually get some money . I didn’t know if that would motivate me to run faster or not. But it actually does [laughs]. You see a girl ahead of you and you know that her spot is worth a thousand extra dollars, it kind of lights a fire under you that you didn’t really feel before. I definitely think about that now. It might wear off in a year or two, but it’s very exciting in the beginning. So yeah, I do think about it.

FW: Looking beyond this weekend, have you decided yet if you will go for the 5K or the 10K for 2008 Olympics?

MH: I hope to be able to try in the 5K. I think a little bit of it will depend on what the field looks like.

FW: And are you feeling pretty hopeful about that, or do you just think if not, 2012 is there…?

MH: Yeah, that’s always there. But you kind of got to have a sense of urgency about it. You never know when you’re going to get injured or if you’ll be able to stay in the sport for that long. So it’s kind of now or never, for next year.

FW: And looking even further in the future, you got your degree from Notre Dame in biology. Do hope to one day go to medical school or use that degree somehow?

MH: I know for this year, I don’t want to go to school. I’d rather just run and that’s it. I do want to apply to med school eventually, but I think it depends on how long I end up running. I mean I don’t want to go to start school at 35 . But I’m kind of taking it a year at a time. It was something that I had in mind all throughout school and something I saw myself doing later in life, but I don’t know now. I haven’t really planned it out that far ahead.

Interview conducted September 24, 2007, and posted September 27, 2007.