Molly Seidel: The Marathon Olympic medallist battling 'imposter syndrome'
The 27-year-old battled with an eating disorder to qualify for the USA Olympic team in her first ever marathon. Despite winning bronze at Tokyo 2020 and being a favourite for the 2022 Boston Marathon, she still struggles with confidence.
Athletics
Molly Seidel is a rare kind of marathon talent.
The Wisconsin native first made athletics headlines when she qualified in second place for the U.S. Olympic team for Tokyo 2020, in her first ever marathon.
Despite this, many onlookers thought that her inexperience would show at the Olympic race in Sapporo. And how wrong they turned out to be.
In what was just her third career marathon, she finished on the podium with an Olympic bronze medal around her neck. The only runners to beat her were a triple world half marathon record holder in Peres Jepchirchir, and marathon world record holder Brigid Kosgei.
Using that momentum, Seidel finished fourth at the New York City Marathon in November 2021. Her time of 2:24:42 made her the fastest ever New York Marathon by an American woman.
On 18 April 2022, she goes to the 2022 Boston Marathon as one of the favourites, seeking the host nation's first win since Desiree Linden in 2018.
But despite her recent successes the American star still struggles with 'imposter syndrome'.
"I struggle with confidence and I struggle with wondering whether or not I belong at this level, whether I belong as a competitor on the world stage," Seidel told CNN.
The making of a front runner
Growing up in Wisconsin, Seidel was always a front runner in school sport. She broke course records and won several state track titles.
The first time her school's cross-country coach Mike Dolan first saw her attack an uphill run, he knew she was special.
“She would be a minute ahead of all the guys and all the girls," Dolan told Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
"I knew at that time she would be a heck of a runner."
Seidel proved her coach right as she went on to win an NCAA cross country title in 2015, two NCAA indoors (3,000m & 5000m) and an outdoor 10,000m title to become the most decorated distance runner in state history.
Some onlookers even thought she could be a potential U.S. Track Olympic Team athlete for Rio 2016.
Mental health struggles
From the outside, Seidel seemed to be in the best shape of her life, but underneath she was experiencing a deep inner turmoil.
She first went public on her struggles with depression, OCD, crippling anxiety and bulimia in a podcast ran by her close friend Julia Hanlon called "Running On Om", just two months before the 2020 Olympic Trials.
“People who are close to me knew what I was going through during my time at Notre Dame (University), from 2012 to 2016. They knew my OCD had manifested itself into disordered eating,” she revealed in a follow-up interview with ESPN.
“When I was in the NCAA, it was obvious I was battling an eating disorder. It was so obvious that people would write on track and field message boards that I looked sick." - Molly Seidel to ESPN.
“They knew I struggled to eat anything I deemed unhealthy They knew I thought I had to be super lean and super fit all the time, never even allowing myself to eat a bowl of mac and cheese or go out to eat with friends without worrying about what I would order. I've never tried to hide what I went through with my family and friends.”
In 2016 she went into a treatment programme for her eating disorder, which she’s still dealing with alongside the anxiety and depression.
When Seidel returned to training, she decided to stop running 5k and 10k and stepped up to the marathon.
“I always kind of dreamed of doing the marathon," Seidel told CNN.
"I think there's just this kind of like glamor and mystery around it, and especially for a younger runner who enjoys doing the distance events in high school, that's kind of the ultimate goal. Everybody wants to do the marathon."
From first marathon to Olympic medal
Her debut 42km race at the USA Trials in Atlanta landed her a place on her nation's Olympic team with race winner Aliphine Tuliamuk and third placed Sally Kipyego.
"I struggled with this kind of imposter syndrome after the trials, specifically as probably the person no one expected to make the team and the person that got probably the most criticism like: Hey, why is this girl on the team?" she continued.
"I think I really struggled with that, and I struggled going into the Games and feeling like I belonged there and trying to prove that I wasn't a mistake on that team."- Molly Seidel to CNN.
Her second marathon effort was the daunting 2020 London Marathon, where she finished sixth .
Then, just 18 months after her first marathon Seidel, who is affectionately known as “Golly Molly” earned bronze and became the third American woman ever to medal in the Olympic marathon.
In November 2021, a broken Seidel returned for her fourth marathon in New York, where she placed fourth with a personal best time despite fracturing two ribs as she prepared for the event.
It was an absolute disaster of a build up,” she recalled.
"It was really hard, not only with the mental stress that we had going on after the Games of just feeling, frankly, no motivation. And just trying to find that drive to re-up for another hard race right after an enormous race that I'd been training effectively two years for.”
Those injuries are now behind the 27-year-old, who has been training in Flagstaff.
Though she dropped out of the New York Half in March due 'setbacks in training', Seidel heads back to Boston where she lived for four years with high hopes for something special.
“Boston was like the place that made me a pro-runner. It was the first place I moved after I finished college.It was the place that kind of like rebuilt me as a runner after going through a lot of challenges through college,” she said to CBS Boston.
“Just getting to do the race in the place that made me the runner that I am and with the people that helped me become the runner that I am, it’s just enormously meaningful to me. That what makes it a lot more special than any other race.”