Run The Roads

Notre Dame alumn Molly Huddle has had her ups and downs this past season. She won the 10k road championships this past fall, but failed to make the team for Worlds finishing outside the top three. She trains with the runProvidence group that includes; Kim Smith, Mary Cullen, Sarah Jamieson, Roisin McGettigan, Stephanie Reilly, and Amy Rudolph. The group is coached by Ray Treacy. This past weekend, Huddle won the U.S. 7 Mile Road Championship, crossing the line in 37:39, five second ahead Serena Burla. RuntheRoads caught up with Huddle afterward.

Run the Roads (RtR): First of all, congrats on your win at Bix 7 this past weekend. The race was tight until the last mile where you pulled away. What was your plan going into the race?

Molly Huddle (MH): Thank you! My plan was to just follow whoever was leading and not let anyone get too far away. Once I saw how hilly the course was, it only reinforced that plan. I thought if I just hang on I could use my track speed to separate myself from the pack on the downhill and kick away on the flat last quarter mile.

RtR: Seven miles is a bit of a different race distance then a 10k, did this change how you approached the race?

MH: At first I thought I should be more conservative but I realize it is only .8 miles longer than a 10k, which is not really an extreme difference. I still tried to follow more than lead due to the hilly course profile though.

RtR: Switching gears, in one of your most recent blogs you attribute not making the team for Berlin to being injured and unfit for too long. Can you explain how you are coming back from that?

MH: Things are going better as I just get consistent workouts in, though I’m not doing anything really impressive at the moment! I missed about three months in the winter so I figured that I would be about a month away from where I needed to be by the time the track championships rolled around. When it didn’t go well I just turned my focus to the roads knowing I’d be getting fitter as the races came up later in the summer. I still don’t feel I have my track sharpness right now, but the strength is there and that carries over well on the roads.

RtR: You also won the 10k road championship last fall, do you prefer road racing to that on the track?

MH: I actually prefer the track because I like to get a rhythm going and I like the ease of it being flat and a more controlled environment where you just worry about speed, as opposed to the roads where more variables come into it and can make it more uncomfortable. You have to love the party atmosphere and big crowds of a road race though!

RtR: Do you prepare any differently for a track race compared to a road race?

MH: Not really, I am currently doing workouts on the track, nothing blindingly fast though. I do try to get used to running early in the morning.

RtR: The runProvidence group is made up of a diverse group of women, many running for countries other than the U.S.  What is the group dynamic like?

MH: It is a good dynamic because no one is competing for the same spot on any national teams, but we can still train together well because we have events in common.  The only downside is that we are all out of town a lot at any given time, visiting homelands, training at camps, etc. so it can be hard to meet as much as we’d like.

RtR: What are your plans for the rest of the season?

MH: I’ll be running a lot of the USARC races, and aim to run the 10 mile champs in Flint, MI, the 5k here in Providence and the Tufts 10k in Boston.