A young woman ran her first marathon Saturday at the Olympic Trials in Atlanta, Georgia, and qualified for the Tokyo Olympics.
Former Notre Dame distance runner Molly Seidel came in second at the trials, finishing behind Aliphine Tuliamuk who won with a time of 2:27:23, according to the South Bend Tribune.
“Seidel, 25, finished in 2:27:31. She is the first U.S. woman to make the Olympic team in her debut marathon,” the report said.
Four years ago, Seidel was the top female distance runner in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), with “four national titles and the Olympic Trials on the horizon,” according to Runner’s World.
However, when a friend said she did not look well, Seidel admitted she was struggling with depression and an eating disorder and entered a recovery program that eventually got her back on track.
She explained:
With OCD, you just have this anxiety all the time and feel like you can’t control anything, so you develop patterns and behaviors. I would compulsively knock on things in specific patterns because you feel like you have some control over the universe. Over time with running, it developed into turning my eating or my running into a control mechanism.
Now, Seidel shares an apartment with her sister in Boston and works at a local coffee shop as she continues to recover and prepare for what comes next.
On Instagram this weekend, the young woman thanked her friends and family for their support before and after she crossed the finish line.
“Finally, thank you to everyone out there cheering yesterday. It was incredible to run 26.2 miles and not hit a silent spot along the whole course. I will never forget this race as long as I live,” she wrote.
Seidel’s favorite inspirational quote is by Haruki Murakami, which reads, “I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning,” according to her profile on the U.S. Olympic Team Trials website.