MARY FREAKING CAIN 1:59.5

Stick with eharmony wrote:

Pac12 and a duck are the biggest idiots on here. They have no idea of reality.

+10000000000

oiwrqpoavs'oj wrote:

yesstiles wrote:

Why was she so excited to break 2:00?

She ran 4:04 for 1500m already and that's way better than 1:59. Anyone running 4:04 should be able to break 2:00 pretty easily right?

The curve is a little different for women, I think, perhaps because they don't tend to have the same top-end speed that guys do. 53 for open 400 would be typical for a sub-2 800 in high school for a guy, or even 52, 51 relay. I don't think Mary is that fast, but I don't know. So the short distance at the higher speed is rarer for women.

Because those guys don't have the aerobic strength that Cain does. Ryan Hall's best 400m was 50.5 and he ran 1:51 in high school.

55.0 is about the minimum speed necessary to run sub-2 and Cain is a bit better than that.

While she could get a decent amount going pro now, the big crossover-mass market endorsements start lining up for Rio in the middle of 2015. Wouldn't be the worst thing for her to go the Missy Franklin route and say she'll compete in college for a year or two and then declare professional status an hour after the 2015 NCAA championships conclude, and then promptly sign deals with General Mills, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, etc. the following week.

Thetruth90 wrote:

Look at Webb, his dad was also a doctor, he was the biggest PED bust in American running.

What? Webb's dad is/was an economist who worked for the World Bank when Alan was in HS.

Thetruth90's and all in the family's trolling attempts are so blatantly unTruthful that most people here can debunk them from memory. Shorter in med school? These people are just eliciting common knowledge. Consign them to the slushpile and go on with the discussion. As for why Cain would be happy with a sub-2:00 despite having surpassed that level at 1500m--maybe because she'd just actually done it, rather than thought she could? Or because it was exciting to blow past a bunch of adult pros and challenge a 2012 Olympic finalist in what's not even her own best event? Or because she just broke a very old American record? (As if this would need explanation.)

beachmouse wrote:

While she could get a decent amount going pro now, the big crossover-mass market endorsements start lining up for Rio in the middle of 2015. Wouldn't be the worst thing for her to go the Missy Franklin route and say she'll compete in college for a year or two and then declare professional status an hour after the 2015 NCAA championships conclude, and then promptly sign deals with General Mills, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, etc. the following week.

The situations really aren't comparable. Missy Franklin loves the whole team swimming thing so much that's she's already turned down big money to finish out her HS swimming career and is going to turn down another chunk of change to swim a couple of years at Cal. It doesn't seem like her parents are 100% happy about that decision, but hey, they want their daughter to be happy and they're not going to order her to go pro. The risk is that her swimming declines over the next 2-3 years. Injuries aren't as big an issue in swimming as they are in running, but they certainly do happen, and even great swimmers like Franklin can run into trouble - see, for example, Knutson, Dagny.

Conversely, Mary Cain hasn't shown any particular attachment to team running and seems comfortable doing what her dad and Alberto tell her to. Within the world of T&F, her marketability is about as good as it's every going to be, and outside the world of T&F she's going to be a footnote at the next Olympics and not of interest to the big consumer products companies unless she turns into some kind of 1:56 / 3:56 [or 3:56 / 14:30] double gold medal threat. Here's hoping that happens, but the chances are, what, 10%?

Also, while Franklin is giving up money by swimming in the NCAA system, she will have opportunities to compete against other fully world-class athletes in her events and will be swimming for the coach who led the US women's team in London. If Cain runs in the NCAA system, she will be competing against 2nd tier athletes in her events and will find herself in that same odd situation Rupp did at Oregon.

Rupp was not sitting on three A standards as a 17 yo. He needed college to develop.

yesstiles wrote:

Why was she so excited to break 2:00?

She ran 4:04 for 1500m already and that's way better than 1:59. Anyone running 4:04 should be able to break 2:00 pretty easily right?

Barringer and Rowbury have never broken 2:00 and they've run 3:59 and 4:00.

Not so easy for a woman to break 2:00.

Thetruth90 wrote:

bet my life she is doing it on PEDs.

talk to mediocre HS xc runners, they know how to get EPO from pharmacists and she is not taking it? right...

You're an idiot.

realityyyy wrote:

yesstiles wrote:

Why was she so excited to break 2:00?

She ran 4:04 for 1500m already and that's way better than 1:59. Anyone running 4:04 should be able to break 2:00 pretty easily right?

Barringer and Rowbury have never broken 2:00 and they've run 3:59 and 4:00.

Not so easy for a woman to break 2:00.

I didn't realize it was so much tougher for females. Far more HS boys break 2:00 every year than break 4:10 for 1500m (or its 1600m equivalent), and Mary has run equivalent to 4:22.9 for 1600m with her 4:04. I assumed Mary had above average speed with those amazingly fast closing kicks we keep seeing, but I guess that's just her remarkable aerobic gift keeping her from going anerobic until the last stage of the race.

I had a boy run 1:53.79 for me who's pr in the 1500 was 4:04 like Mary and who's 400 best was only :52, but I suppose he was unique in that regard.

let me guess, that whole law school thing was all to figure out how to defend himself against doping accusations?