The gun and the tape

"Only think of two things - the gun and the tape.

When you hear the one, just run like hell 

until you break the other."

- "Sam" Mussabini

Molly Huddle: History at 5000m

Aimee Berg October 05, 2010

Photo: Andy Lyons/Getty Images

Molly Huddle competes in the Womens 5,000 Meter during the 2010 USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships at Drake Stadium on June 25, 2010.

NEW YORK – Molly Huddle is so unassuming, that it’s hard to fathom that as recently as August 27 she ran 5,000 meters faster than any American woman in history.

It was four days before her 26^th birthday, and the 5-foot-4 runner from the southern edge of New York lined up next to a dozen other women and four pacemakers at the Diamond League final in Brussels, Belgium.

After the first three kilometers, Huddle didn’t feel over-taxed; she felt in control, and the plan was to run the second half of the race faster than the first. With one lap to go, she looked at the clock.

To hit Shalane Flanagan’s three-year-old record, she figured she needed to run the last 400 meters in about 70 seconds. She kicked as hard as she could and crossed the line in 10^th place.

It was far from her best placement this year, and the cameras had already cut to the winners before she finished, but Huddle had ducked just four-hundredths of a second under Flanagan’s mark and suddenly, 14 minutes, 44.76 seconds and the title “American record holder” shot to the top of her running resume.

Previously, Huddle was a 10-time All-America at Notre Dame, but she had never won an NCAA title, or made a World or Olympic track team.

No one could deny her talent now.

Even her father, Bob, who had run for Notre Dame in the 1960’s and is a retired thoracic surgeon, went from thinking “Aw jeez” when he saw 10^th place flash online to “Holy Cow!”

When Huddle reached him the next day, he said:  “I think you can go faster.” And so does her coach.

Huddle grew up in Elmira, N.Y., about two miles north of the Pennsylvania border. As the youngest of four girls – including her fraternal twin Megan and a pair of sisters more than a decade her senior – Molly was the only athlete.

She lettered in track and soccer, but thought her ticket to college would be as a point guard in basketball. Her father gently tried to steer her toward more realistic aspirations.

One summer, she asked him to design a running program to help her win state high school track titles. He agreed, and every morning, the two would lace up and log miles.

“We weren’t doing a ton,” her father said, “but the most important thing was consistency.”

Her junior year of track, “her times came down precipitously to the point where people were saying, ‘Who is this kid and where did she come from?” Dr. Huddle said.

As college coaches took notice, he suggested she try running cross-country.

There was only one problem.

Her high school was so small that it didn’t have a girls’ cross-country team, so Huddle asked the principal if she could start one.

“Okay,” she was told. “Do what you want. You’ll need a coach, but we can’t pay for it.”

Dr. Huddle agreed to take charge.

As a one-woman team in 2001, Huddle was unbeaten in the regular season, took regional and state titles, and set 12 course records even though her solo efforts, she said, “sort of defeated the purpose of cross-country. I had no team score.”  On the upside, she said, “I made friends with other teams.”

That same year, as a senior, Huddle placed fourth at the prestigious Foot Locker Cross-Country Championships (the de facto nationals for high school students) and had no problem choosing to represent Notre Dame.

It was not only her father’s alma mater, but also her Uncle Tim’s, and Molly had attended football games there as a girl.

But Notre Dame’s running stars were few. “Ryan Shay and Luke Watson were IT,” she said.

Shay had just graduated but he would often come back to South Bend to train.

“Whatever he did, I was going to do,” Huddle said. “I’d ask him what kind of shoes I should get. If I had an injury, I’d call him for advice. We all adopted his tough-guy mentality. He was the legend passed down to our team.”

Shay was a distance runner, though, and Huddle thought she would be a miler. But when she stepped on the track as an 18-year-old college freshman at the 2003 Mt. SAC relays and ran 15:36.95 for 5,000m (an under-19 American record), “I thought, ‘This trajectory could work,’” she said. “Before that, I wasn’t sure how I stacked up.”

As a college sophomore, Huddle qualified for the 2004 US Olympic Trials in Sacramento, Calif., and placed seventh in the 5,000m.

In 2007, after earning her Bachelor’s degree in biology and one-upping Shay with a 10^th All-America title, Huddle came to New York City for a marathon double-header. The day before the annual race, the US Men’s Olympic Marathon Trials were held in Central Park and Shay was competing.

“I didn’t even get to see him,” she said of her mentor.

Huddle was waiting at the six- or seven-mile mark, and as the pack went by, Shay was nowhere.

Shay had collapsed about 5½ miles into the race, and was being rushed to the hospital.

“A former employee of Saucony told me he went down,” Huddle said. “He didn’t say how bad it was but I could tell by looking at him that it was really bad.”

Shay, 28, had died before the race was finished. (The cause was an irregular heartbeat as a result of an enlarged and scarred heart.) The news sent an enormous tremor through the running community, and Huddle was shaken.

Huddle and her former Notre Dame teammate Kurt Benninger (now her husband) flew to Michigan for the funeral.

Afterwards, Huddle resumed training in Providence, Rhode Island under the guidance of Ray Treacy, and qualified for her second US Olympic Trials, in 2008.

Huddle had already run faster than the “A” standard (15 minutes 28 seconds) in her best event, the 5,000m, so all she had to do was place in the top three to qualify for Beijing.

But she had recently taken two weeks off to heal a minor injury, a small tear in the soleus muscle of her left calf, and felt she had lost momentum. “That psyched me out,” she said, “and I buckled under pressure.”

She placed 10^th.

“It was part injury, part meltdown,” she added.

Another ill-timed injury caused her to miss the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, and this year, there was only one major event on the calendar: the 2010 Cross-Country World Championships in Poland in March.

“That was the major goal for the season,” explained Treacy, her coach.

Huddle helped the US women win a team bronze in Poland, but afterwards, the game plan kept shifting.

In May, Treacy planned to take Huddle off the track and put her in road races but at the US Nationals in June, Huddle placed second (behind Lauren Fleshman) in the 5,000m. When she returned to Rhode Island, her workouts were so impressive that Treacy implored Huddle’s agent to make sure she gained entry into European races.

In July, Huddle flew to Paris and broke the 15-minute barrier for the first time in her life (14:51.84) – and became only the 12^th American woman to run a sub-15. 

After that, Treacy said, “We convinced her to forego road racing and go to Europe for the second half of the season. I knew going back, she’d run faster than she had in Paris. She got fitter and fitter as the summer went along.”

Huddle went on to break the 15-minute barrier twice more: in London, then in Brussels where she set the American record.

A day after the record, Huddle Skyped her dad who had seen the race online. When he expressed surprise about her time, she replied, “Yeah, I surprised myself.”

“With another year of training behind her, I think she’ll be consistently in the 14:30’s next year,” Treacy said.

Yet Huddle also has untapped talent at 10,000m. “I think she would have run 30:40 or 30:50 around the time ofBrussels. She has great potential there, no doubt about that,” Treacy said.

Last weekend in New York City, where Huddle capped her season with a fifth-place finish in the Fifth Avenue Mile in 4:25.92, she said she wasn’t sure which event she would target for 2011 and beyond.

“I thought it would be 10K, but this year, 5K went so well, I have to see,” she said.

“We’ll make a decision in March,” said her coach. “It will come down to where she will be the most competitive.”

Meanwhile, Huddle continues to take her incredible season in stride.  

Treacy explained, “I think she just doesn’t realize how good she is.”

Aimee Berg is a freelance contributor for teamusa.org. This story was not subject to the approval of the United States Olympic Committee or any National Governing Bodies.