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Molly Seidel, Coach Jon Green Ready For First Boston Marathon

BOSTON (CBS) – The became a team in Boston and their partnership has taken them to running's biggest stages. Now, Molly Seidel and her coach Jon Green are headed back to where it all started, hoping to conquer the Boston Marathon.

"He was working at the hardware store. I was working at the coffee shop and as a nanny," Seidel said. "And now, he's one of the youngest Olympic coaches ever, and I've got a medal."

Molly Seidel and Jon Green's partnership seems now like fate.

"He made me a marathoner," Seidel said.

Seidel is from Wisconsin and was a national champion at Notre Dame. Green grew up in Berlin, Massachusetts and was a track standout at St. John's of Shrewsbury and Georgetown University.

They became friends while running for Boston's Freedom Track Club, but both were looking for something different.

"I'd been so unhappy with running for such a long time," Seidel said.

Jon Green and Molly Seidel
Jon Green and Molly Seidel (WBZ-TV)

"We sat down at Quebrada bakery in Wellesley, and had a chat about training, and everything around running and we just kind of took it on a two week by two week basis from there," Green said.

They found jobs to pay the bills while developing their own training program, and in the process, rediscovered their love of running.

"We were just having fun with it," Seidel said. "Just racing well."

"We had talked a lot before I started coaching her, what she liked about training, what I liked about training, and a lot of those things were pretty similar," Green said.

Barely four months later, Molly finished second in her very first Marathon, the 2020 Olympic trials. Eighteen months later, she was on the podium in Tokyo wearing a bronze medal around her neck.

And now -- Boston. A long awaited first for runner and coach.

"I have dreamed of running Boston since I was a kid," Seidel said. "I'm just really pumped that I finally get to do THE marathon."

"I remember growing up and hearing about my neighbors running the Boston Marathon, and always thinking -- similarly to Molly -- I can't wait to race this, and one day hopefully I will," Green said.

After triumph on the world stage, they'll return to the place where their story started.

That hardware store that Jon worked at before making his name as a coach, that was Green's Hardware -- his dad's shop in Wellesley, at mile 14.6 on the marathon route. The marathon will pass right by it on Monday.

"They got a sign," Green said. "It will be going in the window soon. It will say "Go Molly Go". It will be really exciting; I know the whole store is excited to see Molly run by."

Molly is hoping the family she nannied for will be out there too, so she can show them just how fast she really is.

"I would try and play with them when I was in the middle of marathon training, and I would be super slow, I couldn't sprint, and they were like 'you're such a slow babysitter' and I go out and make the Olympic team. They're like oh my God!" Seidel said. "Honestly, I still am slow. I just need to go 26 miles and it averages out over the course of that."

You can watch live coverage of the 126th Boston Marathon on WBZ-TV and CBS Boston.com on Monday, April 18, 2022.

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