“We learned that traditional interval training wasn’t Molly’s cup of tea,” Sparks says. Though he arrived in South Bend only a few weeks before the first meet of the 2014 cross-country season, Sparks was quick to size up the deficiencies in Seidel’s training.

But finishing 171 st at 2013 cross country nationals was disheartening, and the 2014 indoor and outdoor track seasons brought more frustration.Įnter Matt Sparks, hired as Notre Dame distance specialist and assistant track coach in late August of 2014 after 12 years at Southern Illinois University. While the setbacks took a toll, Seidel tried to soldier on. She calls it a “comedy of errors for two years.” Once she got into a different dorm, Seidel endured a string of other maladies: a stress fracture in her fibula, then another in her tibia. was kind of a nightmare-it was three or four months of being the sickest I’ve ever been.” “And I think people in the finishing chute thought I had tuberculosis or something. “I was coughing up blood on the start line at nationals,” Seidel says.

The Falmouth Road Race has long been known to draw an international field of both elite and recreational runners, including Olympians, but Seidel’s fund-raiser will be the first of its kind.Play icon The triangle icon that indicates to playīut there’s a footnote to that 217 th place finish, and to the whole 2012 season. “We got to know on a more personal level because one of our big goals here is not only to recruit and have world-class athletes, but we also want to make those athletes accessible to the public,” Edwards said. She was one of the race’s four featured elite athletes during the “at-home edition” in 2020, a change made as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is not Seidel’s first go-around with the Falmouth Road Race. Since then, she has run just three marathons, including her bronze-winning performance in Tokyo. itself is a nonprofit, and Edwards said the goal of Seidel’s fund-raiser is to continue to give back to the local community in a new and expanded way.įollowing a decorated career running track and cross-country at Notre Dame, Seidel made the transition to road races in 2017, taking second in the USATF Road Running Championships 5k. “We’re pretty confident she’ll pass lots of people,” said Jennifer Edwards, Falmouth Road Race executive director.įalmouth Road Race Inc.

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