While most American distance runners who competed in August at Health & Injuries Published: Oct 16, 2015 4:48 PM EDT, Molly Huddle Running in the Cold.
Between September 7 and October 12, Best Running Shoes 2025. Foot Locker XC Results Shalane Flanagan, which Huddle took by three seconds. are resting, recovering, and preparing for the upcoming Olympic year 20K victory by 59 seconds, the 10 mile by 1:19, and the 10K by 57 seconds.
How has Huddle, 31, managed to perform at such a sustained high level in the latter part of a year? The dominance on the roads comes after a stellar summer track season, when she was the only American woman to break 15:00 in the 5,000 meters (running 14:57 twice), won the USATF 10,000 meter outdoor title, and finished a heart-wrenching fourth in the 10,000 meters at the world championships in August, She earned the by American teammate Emily Infeld.
Huddle’s training partner Emily Sisson, the runner-up to her in the 10K championships in Boston on October 12, considers the number and range of Huddle’s victories “impressive. But it’s not surprising.”
“She’s just so fit right now,” Sisson said. “She’s smart with her training. Between races, she’s really good at listening to her body. She takes days easy that she needs to take easy and then does her workouts hard.”
There might be a temptation to see this surfeit of road races as a partial antidote to the disappointment Huddle experienced at the world championships, when she slipped from the bronze medal position to fourth. But that's not how Huddle sees it.
“I don’t think there is an antidote,” Huddle said. “I would have done a majority of these races, no matter what.”
The fact is, for Huddle, this autumn schedule and success level isn’t anything new—it follows a similar campaign that she waged last year. She came into the 5K and 20K U.S. championships this year as the defending champion—and her 5K win in her hometown of Providence, Rhode Island, was her fourth-straight and fifth overall victory there.
In 2015, Huddle, who has the American 5,000-meter record of 14:42.64 and is second on the all-time U.S. list in the 10,000 meters with a 30:47.59, raced on the track four times, and only once between the U.S. and world championships. By September, “there was a combination of feeling like she didn’t achieve what she wanted to achieve in Beijing, and ‘I really need to race more now because I’m fit,’” said Ray Flynn, her manager.
Huddle wasn’t planning to race the 20K on September 7, but a change in the Diamond League meet in Zurich (September 3) altered her plans. The race in Switzerland switched from 5,000 meters to 3,000 meters, ostensibly at the request of Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba. In the absence of the chance to run a 5K personal best on the track, Huddle decided to return to the American roads.
Since then, Huddle acknowledges that she has her limits, though they haven’t been revealed to observers yet.
“I definitely felt tired in the 10K, coming off the 10 mile,” she said. “I probably should get some training in at this point. I was racing off the track build-up. I think if I tried to do another two races this month, I would feel a lack of fitness.”
Just in time, a racing respite is upon Huddle now before the .US 12K in Alexandria, Virginia, on November 15, the final race in the circuit where is also the defending champion.
“I hope, with the month between, I can freshen up a bit and get some longer workouts in,” she said, anticipating 1.5-mile and two-mile repeats on the pavement in Providence and 600 meters and 1,000 meters on the track.
But competition isn’t always draining, Huddle said, adding that it often is a good break from the grind of training. Winter, for example, is “when I’m slogging away for four months without a race,” she said.
Huddle tapered before each race in September and the first half of October, but didn’t take a big recovery period after any of them.
“Some of the races didn’t feel like I had to dig too deep for them,” she said.
Indeed, the competition Huddle faced was never extremely stiff, except in the 5K again Flanagan. In the 20K, Huddle said, she tested her legs, but remained cautious to avoid falling apart at the end. The effort took little out of her. “I felt fine the next day on that one,” Huddle said.
“In a lot of ways, she’s running against herself,” Flynn said. “She’s not in there just to sit and kick. She’s challenging herself to be the best runner she can be.”
How Is Molly Huddle Winning So Many Road Races.
“She just seems to be at home running in the middle of the road,” he said. “Arguably on the track, she runs on the outside a lot. Some people could even say that in Beijing she was running wide [and not always on the inside lane].”
Huddle certainly does more road racing than any of the other professional American female distance runners and she piled up victories even before the outdoor track season began. In March, she won the NYC Half by outkicking Joyce Chepkirui, who was Kenya’s dominant road racer at the time. Huddle said the training she did for the half marathon was ideal for a season in which she needed to add strength work to aid the switch from the 5,000 meters to the 10,000 meters on the track. In 2014, she won the B.A.A. 5K and was the first American winner of the New York Mini 10K in a decade.
While her mastery of a range of distances may seem extraordinary, Flynn noted that such a phenomenon isn’t questioned in the case of Mo Farah, who in addition to all of his 5,000- and 10,000-meter gold medals, also owns the British record in the 1500 meters and has won the Great North Run, England’s prestigious half marathon.
“Maybe 5K is the lowest I can go and still run a good time,” said Huddle, who doesn’t see the events she’s been doing as requiring separate skill sets. “You can run a really good time in any of those events [5K to half marathon] off of similar training—off of what we do, anyway.”
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“I don’t know if it’s just because a lot of these races are in the New England area, so it’s just more convenient for me to do them. But I’m surprised more of the track girls don’t do it," she said. “It’s good way to supplement your income.”
Huddle earned a total of $51,050 in her four recent road triumphs. At the .US 12K, she can add $20,000 for first prize and a $5,000 bonus as point leader on the overall USATF running circuit.
To Infeld, who slipped by her to get the world championships bronze in Beijing, “Molly is phenomenal.”
“I am beyond impressed that she hasn't taken a break [after the track season] and just keeps dominating," Infeld wrote in an email. "My body definitely felt the need for a break after Beijing,” adding that the quartet of USATF victories “speaks volumes to how tough she is.”
Flynn gives credit to Huddle’s coach, Ray Treacy, for being “a very good director of her career,” suggesting that Huddle might already have ventured into the marathon distance if Treacy hadn’t “given her a red light” on that idea.
“Yeah, I think I probably would have done it,” Huddle said. “Obviously, I am able to have the final say, but I value Ray Treacy’s advice, so I end up listening to him. His grand plan makes sense to me. I like it.”
She may debut at 26.2 miles next fall, depending on how the Olympics go for her. If and when Huddle does a marathon, she’ll feel more comfortable due to her USATF championships road racing experiences.
“They’re great stepping stones for that,” she said. “They’re fun and you benefit from them.”
