Mary Cain Dodges all the Tough Questions on her AMA Reddit!

Mary Cain Doges All The Tough Questions On Her AMA Reddit!

But seriously ... imagine if the Letsrun message board had an upvote/downvote system. Shit would get real awesome real quick. I actually have a hard time reading the board without it. It's pretty damn American and it would absolutely bury the trolls, grammar nazis, and idiots after a week, guaranteed. And if you had different tags ("serious" "politics" "funny" whatever) then the mods would have a fair way of deleting shitty content. Registration required. If people dislike your stuff enough, your account/ISP is banned from posting until you learn to play nice or stop talking.

xfit_guy_the_real_one would be unfunny history. Malmo, Canova, and other would get the exposure and format they need to talk intelligently about stuff.

Do it BroJos. Get an account on Reddit, play around with it for a while, hire a couple of actual developers to rip it off, and make some money on this bitch when more than half-educated people start spending time here.

On a related note, whenever someone tells me they're trying to get into running, I have to explain that this is the best running website and that the message board has the best information available on the internet, but that it totally sucks, and they probably shouldn't participate or ask questions here. If it was reformatted (like, a "beginner" tag or sub-section) and demonstrated to be not such a bigoted, hostile shithole, then a HUGE demographic would be more inclined to click here. Just think of how much people would love to explain running topics to people if they were rewarded with internet points! Redeemable for nothing! In an isolated section of the website where trollish posts would be automatically!

Do it and send me a check when it actually works.

upvotes/downvotes are precisely what letsrun needs. I've been using letsrun since about 2005 and in that time its seemed fewer and fewer people have been using the boards

Runnitor wrote:

On a related note, whenever someone tells me they're trying to get into running, I have to explain that this is the best running website and that the message board has the best information available on the internet, but that it totally sucks, and they probably shouldn't participate or ask questions here.

There are plenty of better sites for beginners. I would never recommend them to come here unless they want bad advice.

It's not that most posters don't want to help, it's that a lot of posters have been running their whole life, cannot remember what it was like to start. "Run 50 mpw" does not help.

They're also easy prey for X-Fit spammers.

There are better message boards for beginners.

Kipketer_Pumpkin_Eater wrote:

HardLoper wrote:

Maybe if she borrowed your thesaurus when writing her answers, it would have been more inspiring and imaginative?

How dismal. Pretty disappointed in you HardLoper, illustrating exactly what I'm complaining about. Rather than responding to me honestly, you just are being snarky. But as a matter of fact, the issue I am raising is my central concern with the entire distance running community. American distance running is great, scientifically sound, on the resurgence, with great and wonderful times. But world records mean nothing without Art, morals, culture, expression, etc. to capture the infinite power, promise and energy of distance running. If you don't agree with me and believe distance running is exalted, then I'm baffled as to all the hours and discussion you and others spend--it cannot be just another esoteric nerdy hobby, it is so much grander than that.

I logged in right when the AMA started and followed it pretty closely. She answered questions for about 45 minutes (starting earlier than she said she would and ending on time, but this is still very short for an AMA). There were maybe 50-100 questions posted during that time, and she seemed to basically them in the order they were asked, skipping a few really boring ones or off-topic date requests, so really all her answers came from the first 50. The last 300 were never even seen, it's not like she chose to ignore them. The title of this thread is ridiculous of course, because the only remotely "tough" question posted in this timeframe was the Thyroid one, but really, that's a cliche point that's been debated already, who cares what a 17-year-old thinks (unless she's actually on it)? It would be a better question for Salazar.

I am happy at least to see simple answers to questions such as weekly mileage. Fans are completely in the dark about these basic facts... until recently people were still debating how many miles per week Seb Coe ran, 40, or 100... they were that clueless.

Runnitor wrote:

Registration required.

You lost them there. They will always keep the lowest possible barrier to posting here.

Randy Oldman wrote:

They're also easy prey for X-Fit spammers.

No, you are their easiest prey.

Here are the events as I understand them. Let me know if I'm wrong.

1) Mary realizes that she has many young fans who would love the chance to connect with her. As such, she takes time out of her day to chat online with the general public.

2) A few morons view the above as an opportunity to throw stones.

3) Mary shows maturity by ignoring said morons.

Is that about right?

Do you understand that there is a time and place for "tough questions"? When you try to turn a friendly chat between an athlete and her fans into an interrogation, you come across as a dick. Let the kid talk to her fans without interruptions from grumpy middle aged dudes. A Reddit chat really isn't the place to voice your ethics concerns.

I can't believe anyone from LRC (especially one who likes to play "insider" as much as possible and who wears NOP gear) would be so stupid as to ask a Nike athlete about LRC knowing what the history between the BrosJo and Nike is.

I think it's hilarious that people actually prefer Reddit to LRC. Reddit is truly the worst site on the internet. I can't even imagine how overbearing the 'marathon on a track' and 'Rupp-certified' jokes would be if people were being rewarded for them.

El Are See wrote:

I think it's hilarious that people actually prefer Reddit to LRC. Reddit is truly the worst site on the internet.

Sounds like someone received bad advice from a mallard.

redux wrote:

I can't believe anyone from LRC (especially one who likes to play "insider" as much as possible and who wears NOP gear) would be so stupid as to ask a Nike athlete about LRC knowing what the history between the BrosJo and Nike is.

I threw it on last minute in case she'd answer it because I was curious about the answer. I was also totally cool with her not answering it, which is what happened.

I know a lot of runners IRL who will deny they read the boards only to later bring up that they saw me post something on LetsRun, at which point I find out that they actually do read the boards. Last time someone posted a link to something of mine, according to Google Analytics even though the thread only got 12 posts, the link got clicks referred from LetsRun 123 times in about 15 minutes. This site gets a lot of traffic. It makes me wonder how many pro runners lurk.

Did I expect her to actually answer? Nope. Which is fine. I'm content knowing that her Facebook page is actually her own and how she feels about people recognizing her in public.

Easy to "have fun with the sport" when you have pro facilities and are the most gifted female american in 100 years, toying with the local competition and literally never losing.

J.R. wrote:

I think her answers are great, and especially like this one.

Devils_lettuce_

If you have one advice to runners, what would it be?

runmarycain

Always love the sport. Make sure you're always having fun with it. That's one thing that's been key to my running career. The moment you start to feel like it's not fun and you stop enjoying it (that's a problem). That's what life's about. Always just make sure you have fun with it. At the end of the day that's what life is about, having fun.

philanthopist wrote:

She will fit right in with Nike!

She's a kid. Don't be a bully and leave her alone. What do you want to do, tear-down and/or destroy her? Ruin a great and future even greater runner?

Oh, who am I kidding here? I must be kidding myself. That's the only explanation. Or, do some people think there's value in asking asinine questions?

You may as well have asked why she said Mary Decker Slaney was a hero of hers. You know, given who MDS associated with and what she got busted for. You know, Nike, Al, and doping. You know, a favorite topic of the BrosJo and LRC.

Fable wrote:

Easy to "have fun with the sport" when you have pro facilities and are the most gifted female american in 100 years, toying with the local competition and literally never losing.

also easy to have fun with the sport when you're a nobody from Bumf**k USA, with no real pressure to perform well and lots of free time to spend anonymously making fun of 17-year-olds on the Internet

Legitimately all I was curious about was whether or not she reads these forums. Worst case scenario, she didn't respond, which is what happened, and I'm not offended. I'm one of few people on these boards who thinks NOP is totally clean. I don't even believe the excessive TUE rumors.

Good idea. Avoid the points drama and just get straight to the filtering and organizing the threads for higher visibility. Trying to sort through hundreds of posts to find the few decent ones is a chore, and all the trollish comments derail decent conversations.

People suck she is 17 the hardest questions asked should have been do you have a boyfriend.