Saucony 2009 - Molly Huddle

Despite my attempt to make my own silver lining out of the season, the goal of turning things around in Europe has not gone as planned. When I left Belgium last year after a surprisingly good post-college season sprit of pr-ing, I had big plans for this year. I thought that when I stepped off the plane here in the next year, I’d have accomplished so much more than I have, and would have had the opportunity to do more Golden League or Grand Prix races (which are really cool experiences and make you feel like a flashy track star more than a lonely distance runner a la some of the more humble Belgian circuit meets).

I raced a 5000m in Stockholm and it was a train wreck of a race and felt eerily similar to the Olympic Trials because I faded so badly and kept going nowhere but backwards. Though it was embarrassing to finish so badly at my first Super Grand Prix (definitely a cool experience, the race aside, as you could win actual diamonds as prizes, and it was at the former Olympic stadium, and the hotel had an ice bar, and people were waiting outside for your autograph …), it was truly a race that I shouldn’t have been in. My goal going into the race was to hang on to a pack going around 15:12 pace and try to run evenly and kick the last kilometer to squeak under the “A” standard or at least get a solid time out of it. Imagine my surprise when we land at the airport in Stockholm to rumors of Meseret Defar going for the sub 14:11 world record at this meet. I then figured the whole field would go out faster than usual and that I may be over my head here. I went out near last in 4:48 through the first mile feeling a little stressed but not too bad, after all, it was only a few seconds off my goal pace, and I didn’t want to lose contact with the women who I know have run around 15:00-15:10. I hoped that as they fell off the hard early pace, I could run with them or maybe even pick them off in the last lap. Well, my hopes were a little too high, and I fell apart instantly around lap 6 and tried to hang on to the two girls around me for a few laps, but once I lost contact, I couldn’t do more than what was a tempo paced last mile. I was thinking a lot about dropping out in that last mile (not the best mindset for a race), but I thought I could gradually recover and catch up to my teammate Amy Rudolph, and to be honest, I’d never dropped out before and didn’t really know how, nor did I want it to become a habit. Afterwards, I decided that I shouldn’t be fading this badly and have done so in 3 races this season, so I cut the season short and didn’t race Oordegem.

I am going to go home and try to get some good workouts in before doing a few road races and possibly coming over to Europe for the second session, if I can get into the meets and my workouts go well. I really want to get something positive out of the season. After all, I have trained all year to do more than 6 track races. Also, it doesn’t make much sense to me to go from good 10,000m shape in early May to having pitiful performances in June and July, so while I’m home I’ll also investigate the iron levels, make sure there are no viruses or other problems health wise and then get back on track the best I can and regain some confidence with a few good workouts. It has been a pretty disappointing and embarrassing season so far, but I did what I thought was my best to prepare. Now I’m going back to the drawing board to try to analyze what went wrong, fix things and put a little more work in to try to salvage the late season, and at least have a few races that I have no doubts going into and that I’m proud of. At this point, the next time I put on that red Saucony singlet, I’m guaranteeing that I’ll be fit and ready to go.