Molly Seidel on her return to marathon running after post-Olympics struggles: 'It's hard and scary going on this healing path'

As Molly Seidel sits down for an interview on Sunday 8 October, she has a huge smile on her face. Carrying a bunch of pink roses, Seidel looks relaxed and content. Perhaps if you didn’t know who she was, you’d never guess she just took eighth in the 2023 Chicago Marathon, second among American women, and finished her first marathon since winning the bronze at Tokyo 2020 three years ago.

“It was so powerful finishing that last mile just because it has been a really difficult last few years. It's been a lot, and I've worked really, really hard to get back to this, and to just be a better person overall,” Seidel said in an exclusive interview with Olympics.com after the race.

Molly Seidel on injury challenges, self-doubt, and finding the "healing path"

Since winning bronze in 2021, Seidel faced a series of injuries. She broke two ribs before the New York Marathon in 2021, then pulled out of the 2022 Boston Marathon at mile 16 because of a hip injury. Mental health struggles also hit Seidel hard. The mental health screening before the 2022 World Championships helped her realize that she was not OK, and Seidel dropped out of Worlds to go into treatment for an eating disorder.

After putting in so much work on herself, Seidel returned to racing in 2023. She ran a half-marathon in Texas in February, followed by a 10K in Boston in June, and the New Haven 20K in September. None of those races turned out exactly as she wanted because she hadn’t yet worked all the kinks out. But in Chicago, Seidel ran the race she knew she could.

“It's always hard and scary kind of going on this like healing path and wondering if you can ever get back to where you were, and knowing as a great woman in our sport said I'm not back I'm better so it's exciting,” Seidel said, referring to Sha’Carri Richardson’s quote after winning the world 100m title.

Chicago Marathon a stepping stone to Paris 2024 

Next, Seidel will turn her attention to the Olympic Team Trials Marathon in Orlando in February. She plans to take some time off to recover from Chicago, but the quick turnaround means she will get back to training soon. Part of what she will do with her team is pick apart her Chicago performance and figure out what she can improve upon.

"What we're doing with my form work, with strengthening, we're on the right track. We've still got a little ways to go there, and just making sure that I'm moving as efficiently as possible, and as strong as possible,” she said. “So being able to come out here and run a really fast time and knowing, I've still got some things that I can improve on here. And I know that I can go faster than this. That was exciting.”

Chicago was about making sure she could feel comfortable in a big race again, which was in service of a bigger goal: Paris 2024. 

“I think it's important to have one big overarching goal, and then your stepping stones is to get to it and Chicago for me is that stepping stone. And so [Paris 2024 is] not something that I'm thinking about constantly or every single day, but it's that background, that background noise, like everything that we're doing is building towards that,” she said.

Molly Seidell: "It's a little bit of a relief knowing I don't have to prove anything to anyone"

Both making the 2020 Olympic team, then winning a bronze, was a bit of a shock in the marathon world. Seidel said that her win in Tokyo makes preparations for Paris a little different. 

“I think there's that added expectation for sure. But I think it also is a little bit of relief knowing I don't have to prove anything to anyone. I've been able to prove that to myself, and everything now is just a bonus on top of that,” Seidel said.

She keeps that bronze medal with other Olympic mementos in a glass case in her kitchen. It’s there for her friends and family to see, of course, but it’s also there so she can get a daily reminder of what she can accomplish.

“On the tougher days or like these last two years, I've dealt with a lot of injury, a lot of setbacks, and so it's nice on the days when you might not be feeling it, motivation's low or you're feeling really down. You kinda remember. You're like, yeah, I did that. I can do this.”