Mary Cain 4:17 for 2nd…oh boy

A runner gets outkicked during a slow tactical type first race of the season and the speculation begins ...

no, this fits into a larger picture of very much underperforming for this greatest single talent in American women's distance running ever, but we do not know what is going on such that she is not running even close to what she was doing two years ago. This is not good.

jjjjj wrote:

no, this fits into a larger picture of very much underperforming for this greatest single talent in American women's distance running ever, but we do not know what is going on such that she is not running even close to what she was doing two years ago. This is not good.

You are overreacting. This was obviously a sit and kick race so claiming that something is wrong is dumb. Did you think Rupp and Lagat were ruined when they ran 14:xx at NATIONALS last year?

Cain was 2nd not last and she only lost by about a second. The only thing this shows is that she's not race sharp and/or the winner had a better kick. Someone will always have a better kick. Doesn't mean there's anything wrong with Cain.

love the educated fanbase here wrote:

A runner gets outkicked during a slow tactical type first race of the season and the speculation begins ...

That is what sports fans do. They speculate. That doesn't make them undeducated, it makes them fans.

This isn't any runner. It's America's brightest hope arguably ever on the female side losing to someone not at her level.

You have to pay to watch the race at Runnerspace here:

but I'm putting a screen shot of the finish here:

You say she just got outkicked. This wasn't like she got outleaned. She got destroyed the final lap

rojo wrote:

It's not time to panic but it's definitely time to pay even more attention. I always said as a coach, it's very common to improve a lot and then hit a plateau for a while. Then wait for another breakthrough. Hasay seemingly did that for all of college. But a big step backwards is never good.

The big difference being that Hasay was in COLLEGE when she plateaued. She was protected. Cain turning pro while still in high school isn't. You don't get years as a pro to work out of the plateau phase and escape criticism. Cain cannot say she's running for her team and concentrating on NC's. If she fails to make the World Championships/Olympics it's unquestionably failure. With big ambition and big goals it opens you up to big failure. Not saying she will, but that's the consequence of the choice she made.

Also Cain't last lap was 64.7+ I had just timing it on my watch. She's run 1500 at almost that pace.

We gotta go to a Brooks event with Desi. I just watched the event and could do a full recap later.

If you subscribe to RS pro you can watch it here:

http://oregonrelays.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?event_id=26&do=videos&video_id=141608

The race was rabbitted a bit bizarrely for 1k.

I had Cain at

67.1

221.7 (74.6)

329.3 (67.6)

48.6

In terms of 300-700-1100 splits, it was

49.4, 203.3, 313.3, 417.9. I had her last ap at 64.6

Coming into the bell, Alexi Pappas took the lead (Cain had been right behind the rabbit for the whole race). Cain didn't really respond. Cain was close to 10 meteres down with 300 to go. In the final 200, Pappas started to slow but the only person moving was LeBlanc. She was behind Cain but blew by her near the end of the final turn and pulled away convincingly.

After the Brooks event, I'll watch it again and get LeBlanc's final 400, 300 and 200 as well as Cain's final 200.

wejo wrote:

love the educated fanbase here wrote:

A runner gets outkicked during a slow tactical type first race of the season and the speculation begins ...

That is what sports fans do. They speculate. That doesn't make them undeducated, it makes them fans.

This isn't any runner. It's America's brightest hope arguably ever on the female side losing to someone not at her level.

You have to pay to watch the race at Runnerspace here:

http://oregonrelays.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?event_id=26&do=videos&video_id=141608

but I'm putting a screen shot of the finish here:

http://www.letsrun.com/?attachment_id=73134

You say she just got outkicked. This wasn't like she got outleaned. She got destroyed the final lap

Speculating that MC is no longer able to run faster than 4:17 is over reaching.

Speculating that MC is boozing it up at college is plain stupid fan or not.

Speculating with sound logic is what informed fans do.

Saying she got outkicked is correct she did but inferring out kicked means out leaned at the line is the type of speculation one would associate with people uneducated in the sport not with an educated journalist such as yourself.

This is what I hate about this sport. Overanalyzing a very early-season race that doesn't matter by people that have no clue what type of training phase Cain is in.

It was a slow race and her speed wasn't there at the end to win. No way she is just in 4:17 shape. I would hope she would be in at least 4:08 shape right now in a fast race and on track to run 4:00-04 in 2-3 months.

Remember that she split 2:03 in the 800 as a freshman in 2011.

There is a certain amount of training inertia that takes place where one's results are largely depending on the work they did over the previous 12 months. With that in mind, I would look at Mary's results and say she started going the wrong way in 2013. Her results don't indicate that due that inertia.

This may seem too simplistic, but in my opinion Salazar does not understand the mechanics of running as well as he thinks he does. I applaud him for trying to figure it out, don't get me wrong, as I'm in the same boat trying to figure it out too.

From my viewpoint the first mistake was to try to "correct" her form, rather than try to take a step back and say "Here is the best hs female runner ever in the US. If form is truly important, how can it be possible her form is bad if she is the best ever? It's illogical. I better re-evaluate what I thought I knew about mechanics because maybe what she's doing is actually perfect." That did not happen.

I contend her form was actually beautiful. She was so elastic and springy and fluid before he turned her into a robot. People worry way too much about what the forearms are doing, or if the hands are "crossing centerline". That is not seeing the big picture. It's the axial rotation of the spine that is important to generate power, and she's lost a lot of that.

They've tried to get her to run like a male sprinter, but male sprinters have dramatically more upper body mass than female sprinters and especially female distance runners. They can get that axial rotation of the spine keeping the arms straighter ahead of them because they open the elbow angle up a lot more and it allows for more shoulder rotation. But distance runners keep their elbows a lot tighter and if the arms come straight forward you just can't get the same fluid shoulder movement and therefore spinal rotation.

Now she's probably forgotten what it's like to run fluidly like she used to. She needs to forget everything she's learned about mechanics with Alberto, as far as I can tell, and stop thinking when she runs. When she ran raw, like a wild animal, she was really a sight to behold. That's been lost and now she runs more like a cyborg that was programmed by engineers that didn't quite understand the human body's subtleties.

wrongo wrote:

Cain was 2nd not last and she only lost by about a second. The only thing this shows is that she's not race sharp and/or the winner had a better kick. Someone will always have a better kick. Doesn't mean there's anything wrong with Cain.

I'm more troubled by the fact that it's a slow race. 2 years ago, 17 year old Mary Cain had a pretty insane kick that could hold its own against the best in the world. Now her kick is having trouble keeping up with Annie LeBlanc?

As an isolated incident, I could easily believe that she was just in the middle of a tough training week, and was fatigued, but both this year and last, she seems to be behind where she was 2 years ago, and it's cause for concern. Not cause for panic, just concern.

More than anything, this has to do with MC adjusting to setbacks and running/racing not always being easy/fun. I think it was evident last winter (2013-2014, when she was unbeatable) that things were "easy" for her/ great. She was enjoying the attention and having a blast beating everyone. However, it was also apparent from her comments at World Jrs last spring. (How it was so fun that the girls were friendly, talk before the race, etc) that growing into her place on the mid distance scene nationally had been a bit rushed.

I'm actually glad that she is going through this now. If she can come through this, she will be on the US mid distance scene for awhile. If she cannot, she was never meant to be there. My guess is, give it a year or two and MC will be back to her dominant ways.

Maybe she is peaking for world champs?

Yawn. Does anyone think this will mean sh!t in June/July/August.

What happened to my girl:

http://www.flotrack.org/coverage/251075-Workout-Wednesday-Season-8/video/733277-Best-Race-Workout-Combo-of-Your-Life-Jordan-Hasay-Mary-Cain#.VTLR4md0weg

wejo wrote:

love the educated fanbase here wrote:

A runner gets outkicked during a slow tactical type first race of the season and the speculation begins ...

That is what sports fans do. They speculate. That doesn't make them undeducated, it makes them fans.

This isn't any runner. It's America's brightest hope arguably ever on the female side losing to someone not at her level.

You have to pay to watch the race at Runnerspace here:

http://oregonrelays.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?event_id=26&do=videos&video_id=141608

but I'm putting a screen shot of the finish here:

http://www.letsrun.com/?attachment_id=73134

You say she just got outkicked. This wasn't like she got outleaned. She got destroyed the final lap

Remember when Rupp ran 8:07 and 13:01 indoors to break 2 AR's followed by a 4th place at World in the 3k

Went out to Oxy ran 13:19 and got outkicked in the 5k by a second to a guy who wasn't even on his level

Then came back at Prefontaine and ran 26:44 to break his own AR in the 10k, a time that was almost his 5k from two weeks ago back to back?

I'm hoping the same for Cain, but we shall see...

Maybe whoever was "managing" her via Alberto was actually a better coach. Alberto's workouts does not equal a full time hands on coach.

Have to admit, Mary is Alberto's pet project. If she goes down so does the coaching legacy he built by poaching Rupp in HS.

And then Annie comes back today and beats Treniere Moser in the 800. That's quite a coming out party.

Do you guys even run? There are ups and downs. The body reacts in different ways. you have bad days. You have bad seasons. You have breakthrough races. You have periods where you don't know why you are running and others where you want to train harder than you ever thought possible. If she has 40 months of bad results, let me know.