Molly Huddle competes at the 16th IAAF World Athletics Championships London 2017 on Aug. 10, 2017 in London.
What can you do in an hour?
Most folks can watch a TV drama (including commercials), take a tennis lesson or wash a load of laundry and start the dryer.
Molly Huddle can run more than 11 miles – farther than any U.S. woman in history – setting two other American records along the way.
She calls it a “power hour.”
On Nov. 1, Huddle ran for 60 minutes on a track in Attleboro, Massachusetts, covering 11.14 miles or 17,930 meters. The two-time Olympian also set women’s American records for 15 kilometers (50 minutes, 7.82 seconds) and 10 miles (53:50) without breaking stride.
Huddle, 36, now holds 10 American records, 11 if you add one from a women-only road race.
“We decided to find a challenge that was an appropriate size for this year and for me, where I am right now (in my training) – and that was it,” Huddle said. “It was fun. I had never done anything like that on the track before, so it’s always nice at this age to mix things up and do new things.”
Only three other women were on the track with Huddle as they ran a sanctioned race under COVID-19 protocols. Two runners were pacesetters, with one dropping out before the finish.
For those doing the math, 17,930 meters is almost 45 laps. A 10,000-meter race, Huddle’s longest on the track to that point, has “only” 25 laps.
“You know, I thought it would be boring, but I liked it,” said Huddle. “I just went into 10K mode, where you just click everything off and zone out.”
Once she got through one 10K, she made good progress toward finishing another.
Huddle’s coach, Ray Treacy, gave her splits every 400 meters. She was trying to hit 80-second quarters, which is about 5:20 pace per mile.
On Instagram, Huddle wrote, “The hour went by pretty fast actually!”
She now has six American records on the road (5K, 10K, 12K, 20K, 10-mile and half marathon) and four on the track (10,000, hour, 10-mile and 15K). Huddle is a former American record holder in the 5,000 on the track and currently holds the record in the half marathon for women only. (Keira D’Amato recently broke the 10-mile American record for women only).
Perennial Podium Finisher
Huddle is also a 28-time national champion at distances from 5K to 20K, which includes odd races like 7 miles and 12K. She won her first title in 2008 and not a year went by without at least one – until 2020 .
Huddle also has a formidable streak of making every Olympic and world championships team since 2011.
She figured to double her chances this year as one of the favorites going into the 2020 U.S. Olympic Team Trials Marathon on Feb. 29 in Atlanta.
Huddle added the marathon to her repertoire in 2016, placing third at the New York City Marathon in her first attempt at the distance.
She and Treacy knew that if the Olympic trials didn’t work out, she could simply shift her focus to the 10,000 meters on the track, where she holds the record of five straight national titles from 2015-2019.
Somewhere between the 20th and 21st miles of the 26.2-mile course, Huddle was in 13th place, but “going backwards and getting passed.”
She said Treacy told her before the race, “If it’s going really, really badly, just step off and save yourself for the track.”
That’s what Huddle did, but she wound up saving her legs for a season that “just never happened.”
Within a month, the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials – Track and Field in June and the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 were postponed due to the pandemic.
“It was definitely a bummer,” Huddle said. “I almost felt a little bit of relief because I did feel like I needed more time, but then I didn’t think it would extend this long. For an athlete of my age, this is too much time to go by without a season. You don’t want to let a year pass you by, but sports just took a backseat. There were more important things going on.”
She said 2020 became the year when you “just do whatever you can with what you can.”
Treacy suggested Huddle see what she could do with an hour. The race is rarely attempted by world-class runners these days, but was popular in the 1980s when Treacy and his brother John were elite runners.
“It was probably July,” Huddle said, “and he was like, ‘Oh, you should tackle the American record – it’s definitely something you can get. You just have to decide how fast you want to try to go.’”
