At the desk of her father’s Body Tech fitness studio on Pantigo Road the other day, Alyssa Bahel was asked how the Paris Marathon had gone.
It had gone well, very well, she said, reporting that she’d run it in 3 hours, 10 minutes, and 15 seconds — her best time to date. It was, ostensibly, a strong enough time to qualify for the 2026 New York City Marathon, its being too late, she said, for her to apply for November’s race.
Bahel, who ran track and played field hockey at Denison University after having done the same at East Hampton High School, from which she graduated in 2015, can now cross Paris (her sixth marathon) off the list of the major ones she has yet to do: Chicago, Berlin, London, Tokyo, and Sydney. Ultimately, she said she’d like to run with a team, which would make it easier to enter the majors, not to mention that it would be more fun.
As for Paris, which drew around 55,000 entrants, “the weather was perfect, a little cloudy, but 55 degrees — not too cold, not too hot. I stayed in a hotel near the Arc de Triomphe, where it began and ended. We ran a lot by the Seine, and went by all the monuments . . . Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre . . . but, you know, when you’re running it’s hard to look up, you’re so in the zone. The beginning was pretty flat, the second half was hilly, rolling hills — it was challenging.”
(She had four other days to see the sights.)
“The older I get,” the 27-year-old added, “the more I want to do athletically . . . I owe my athleticism to my dad.” Mike Bahel is a top age-group long-distance runner and triathlete who also oversees a Body Tech fitness studio at the Montauk Playhouse. “I want to do an Ironman, probably Lake Placid, with him,” she said.
When she’s not running, Bahel works as the program manager for Hamptons Community Outreach, a nonprofit founded by Marit Molin that helps families in need from Riverhead to Montauk. “We do home repair, food outreach, crisis care, and child-centered outreach. We’re a small team, but a mighty one,” she said with a smile. “It’s a great job.”
Next for her is the Katy’s Courage 5K in Sag Harbor on Saturday, a race she won two years ago, then the May Day 5K at East Hampton Village’s Main Beach on May 4. She was the female runner-up there last year.
“Then there’s the Shelter Island 10K. I’ll do that for sure. And Jordan’s Run. . . . I try to do as many local races as I can — triathlons too, Mighty Montauk, the Montauk Lighthouse triathlon, Mighty Hamptons. . . . Also, I’d like to add that Dragon Hemp in Sag Harbor is sponsoring triathletes. They’re sponsoring me and my dad.”
Asked which of the triathlon disciplines was the most difficult for her, Bahel said, “I think swimming is the hardest. I run a lot, and I love to bike.”
Others precede her out of the water, then she catches up.
