Did Al Sal ruin Mary Cain?

Bravie wrote:

Hayduke wrote:

probably could have brought her along slower but the truth is she doesnt really have a world beater frame or form. she could have progressed slower and been a solid pro runner who made a few teams, but that is not really what al sal is about. he is about finding talent to get medals... she was not going to get any medals unless she could handle his training.

Well then he shouldn’t have coached her

such a weird response...... I didn't like my job.... they shouldn't have hired me!!!

Primo Numero Uno wrote:

Can't stand Salazaar but you are wrong. He did not ruin Cain, she wasn't cut out to be an elite athlete mentally. She's been away from him long enough with her talent she could easily be putting together respectable performances that at would put her close to the of the NCAA D1 level if he was the problem. But she isn't close to that point now.

I agree that Salazar isn't the only one to blame, he did what he honestly believed was right - to train her as a 3:55 runner. He couldn't believe what times she ran off the workouts she did before she worked with him. So he thought he could just throw super-hero workouts at her to make her reach the next level.

The even bigger reason why he isn't to blame, is well Cain was mentally EXTREMELY TOUGH and not weak as you think. She was a young, 16-17 year old girl and all she wanted to do was to please Salazar in workouts and races. She looked up to him, he is the most renowned coach in our current era so she would do anything he would tell her. By doing that, she often exceeded the line of what she should have been doing in workouts, and Salazar might not have noticed. HS boys usually don't have that problem, if they realize they are getting killed in a workout they let their coach now.

Time and time again going to the well didn't work for a body-transforming young HS girl as it would work for Farah and Rupp, who are known to be among the guys doing the hardest workouts in the world (post El-Guerrouj/Komen era) and have the lifetime base to do it. Salazar is world-class at training world-class elites and making them Olympic medalists, but he was the wrong person to take care of a super-talented young HS girl with the mental strength to do just about anything a coach would want her to. The job of a coach for Cain would be to hold her back, if she ran crazy times off very weak workouts the next step should have been to up the workouts by 1 or 2 levels and not by 5.

Lastly, you mention her failure after she departed with Salazar. Yes, she said she changed the training completely and upped mileage a lot instead of intensity which caused even more injuries and made it worse. Whoever took that post-Salazar training in their hands, either a coach or herself just finished off her potential career completely. She was THRIVING on low mileage and high intensity (fast-twitch runner! 1:59 800m speed @16!), she just needed to keep the training of Salazar with a BIT less intensity/hero workouts after races and she would have developed just fine. For everything he did wrong, at least he kept her mileage at MAX 60-65 mpw while increasing the intensity, which was very good.

it is Cain's fault for sticking with Al Sal.

and you never bring an athlete to a race feeling awful.

it that is the case.

and you don't work on the 5000m when you are working on your 800m and very young.

the whole thing makes no sense.

world class coach and world class runner = worst case scenario.

who defends this? wrote:

[quote]Shutupalready wrote:

Salazar, by his own words, a pathetic 57 400m man, never had any business training Cain. Salazar's 400m & 800m personal bests would not even put him in top 25% for let'srun male posters.

And yet his Pr's 1 mile and up would blow away 99% of letsrunners

I don't understand the benefit at all to pushing someone that hard at all.

Training documentaries on most of the Kenyans I've seen (specifically St. Patrick's/Rudisha, Sang/Kipchoge) reveal a completely different training philosophy than Salazar's. They have a philosophy of never really going past 90% in workouts and saving it for the races, yet both are world record holders and considered GOATs in their best events (800m, Marathon).

You need a coach and you need teammates.

Cain has always rejected both.

So now she lives and trains like a yuppie road runner in NYC.

That's not a bad thing, but if you had the talent to run with the bigs

and choose not to.....well, blame yourself for your lack of courage.

who defends this? wrote:

Who in their right mind would say that Salazar was qualified to train an elite 800m runner, teenager or 26 year old?

Salazar, by his own words, a pathetic 57 400m man, never had any business training Cain. Salazar's 400m & 800m personal bests would not even put him in top 25% for let'srun male posters.

So who is coaching Murphy and Brazier now? Salazar or Julian?

If it's Salazar, will he ruin them as well? If it is Julian, is he qualified? What were his 400 & 800 PB?

And I have no idea what Derek Thompson's 800m PB was...

Do I think Salazar ruined Cain?

No.

Unless that's a pseudonym for female maturation.

Lots of women get significantly slower in their late teens whether it's Claudia Lane, Mary Cain or Candace Hill.

So, she's to the point now she can't even keep up with a bunch of hobby joggers on an easy run? (video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2yG_xH91lw

I like Cain, she's a really tough kid, really smart, but I just don't think she's meant to be a world class athlete and that part of her life is over. We are what we are, and her build just doesn't seem slim and strong like a world class runners body should be, think- Molly Huddle, Shalane, etc. The fact that shes constantly injured sorta supports that. I don't think Sal ruined her, she ran fast as a teen probably because her body was not yet what it was going to be.

Sureeeeeee wrote:

I like Cain, she's a really tough kid, really smart, but I just don't think she's meant to be a world class athlete and that part of her life is over. We are what we are, and her build just doesn't seem slim and strong like a world class runners body should be, think- Molly Huddle, Shalane, etc. The fact that shes constantly injured sorta supports that. I don't think Sal ruined her, she ran fast as a teen probably because her body was not yet what it was going to be.

Yes she was really tough and smart and fully dedicated to the sport. No, she was meant to become a world-class athlete (she already was!) and her body was just perfect for running.

Here at 17, almost 18 (fully matured):

She got injured because of training mistakes. The fact that she could handle Salazar workouts for so long and was never injured prior to working with him actually shows she was HIGHLY resistant to injuries. But there is always a line where if you do too much, too soon you will get injured, no matter who you are.

After Salazar she went even more downhill, as she trained high mileage and wanted to prove she can become good again she just ended up working too hard again. Her drive, the sheer motivation to win and become better and train as hard as possible is what prevented her from long-term development.

The video you showed is from 2019, long after her actual career was over. Running is now just a fun thing for her, obviously she gained a lot of fat and weight now (just look at her boobs) but it's not that her body became that way, that's because she is eating more now and not training nearly as much/hard as before. Most runners gain weight in a 2-4 week season break, even Meb and Lagat gain 10-15 pounds. Now imagine a 2-3 year break instead of 2-4 weeks, voila you got her new body.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Sureeeeeee wrote:

I like Cain, she's a really tough kid, really smart, but I just don't think she's meant to be a world class athlete and that part of her life is over. We are what we are, and her build just doesn't seem slim and strong like a world class runners body should be, think- Molly Huddle, Shalane, etc. The fact that shes constantly injured sorta supports that. I don't think Sal ruined her, she ran fast as a teen probably because her body was not yet what it was going to be.

Yes she was really tough and smart and fully dedicated to the sport. No, she was meant to become a world-class athlete (she already was!) and her body was just perfect for running.

Here at 17, almost 18 (fully matured):

https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/NY-CM840_SP_CAI_P_20130809184358.jpg

Dude, Cain was goofy, not a natural athlete. She had horrible slumped over posture, poor form, weak musculature, she only ran fast as a teen because she was smaller, had some talent, and trained like a pro. She was already at her peak and could only plateau at best as she aged. When she couldn't maintain the teenage slimness anymore, it was all downhill from there. I think Tuohy has more of an upside, she LOOKS and performs like an athlete.

Not sure with all the Mary Cain ruined by Alberto stuff.

Coaching is a tough gig but the one thing that I do know is that just because an athlete can do a session doesnt mean they should.

You have to progress any athlete both physically and mentally for the tough workouts that are to come in the pursuit of excellence.

It is a challenge but I am biased.

Besides his boy toy Rupp, I think every other young athlete broke under him. The only ones that seem to work well with AS are those that are already accomplished world class runners in need of a boost. There are too many examples of broken athletes under AS to be ignored.

Kejelcha, Brazier, and Klosterhalfen were young when they started with him. They are all improving.

What is not said enough is that runners are very delicate, not so different than other sports but more so. If anyone here has had a serious injury they know it can take you out of the improvement track permanently sometimes. The damage of injuries goes way beyond the body, it can be psychologically crippling. So perhaps for all these young talented ones who are obviously doing well with their existing training it might be best to keep their routine in place and very slowly introduce changes. We all know AS pushes tremendous volume and intensity. That seems to be a recipe for disaster for a lot of runners.

He seems to treat them all like young versions of himself - and we all know he was missing a few screws back then running himself to the ground.

Discus? Were you expecting someone to throw a discus?

Learn how to SPELL!!! DISCUSS!!!!

None of those athletes were close to as young as Cain when she was with Salazar. They are all listed at 22 and joined within the last year or year and a half. They were all physically mature. Kejelcha already had a world indoor medal before Salazar and had already run 12:53. I am sure, as is almost everyone, that Kejelcha is several years older than that. His improvement curve certainly indicates that. Brazier, who is 22 now had run 1:43.55 as a freshman in college in 2016, just joined the group last year, Klosterhalfen, who is also 22, has been a pro for years and just joined Salazar last year--she's the same age as Cain. She had already run sub 4 and sub 15.

Cain was 16-17 when he started coaching her from a distance and then joined her at 17. The video showed how he was borderline abusive in his training in the sense not that he was not giving her hugs and encouraging her but that he was giving her incredibly difficult workouts even after races, hero workouts ("Best workout/race of your life," he said to Hasay and Cain in the video), and actually encouraging her to vomit (he's similar in one of the 3:47 Kejelcha videos, where he came back ill from attempting the 1500m record in Europe). She did 4:24 for the mile, then roughly 5:30s for 3M, 1:43 600m, 62, 27, and she had never even done a 3M tempo to that point. It is entirely obvious that this was foolish and guaranteed to get her injured at that age. You have to build up to things like that. Hasay was doing the workout with her but was about 5 years older. 27 is faster than her pr 400m pace at the end of almost 8 miles of work at 1 hr pace on down to 300m pace.

As for talent, this was the youngest runner to break 2 in U.S. history, and a 55 400m runner (maybe faster) and 4:04 1500m runner. All that even with the slumping posture. If you want to blame anyone, Salazar is the only one who deserves it. Textbook case of ruining a huge talent.

Javman wrote:

Discus? Were you expecting someone to throw a discus?

Learn how to SPELL!!! DISCUSS!!!!

You new around here?

Lets be real v3 wrote:

So perhaps for all these young talented ones who are obviously doing well with their existing training it might be best to keep their routine in place and very slowly introduce changes.

So let's not have the kid move 3000 miles away and stick her in a situation with no peers and no social structure. Not a recipe for success even taking away any thoughts of training load.