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

I agree with you on NOP, and am a huge fan as well. Which is why the question baffles me. In my mind it's akin to asking Obama if he is aware of the latest Paul Shanklin song Rush played during the second hour of his show. But, whatever. It doesn't matter.NOP FTW!

xenonscreams wrote:

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.

Dude, wtf are you talking about? This is totally irrelevant. Please leave now.

HardLoper wrote:

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

HardLoper wrote:

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

Are you drunk, Loper?

wrongo wrote:

What ***tty advice. I hope no youngster reads that and buys into it. Life is not all about what is fun. Good luck when you are 25 and broken, Mary.

Of course life is all about having fun. Just do what you want, have fun, let the government take care of the rest. It's not hard to understand. She's figured it out at 17. What's your problem?

she's in high school; let her enjoy herself for a while. and enough of those questions were creepy to say that she should just answer the fluff.

wrongo wrote:

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.

What ***tty advice. I hope no youngster reads that and buys into it. Life is not all about what is fun. Good luck when you are 25 and broken, Mary.

I have to agree - the appeal of running is not that it is fun. It isn't fun a lot of the time. When she gets hurt and loses all her fitness and struggles to run 5:30 mile I hope she isn't looking for fun.

I suppose it depends how she is defining fun - hate to read too much into a messageboard post.

agip wrote:

I have to agree - the appeal of running is not that it is fun. It isn't fun a lot of the time. When she gets hurt and loses all her fitness and struggles to run 5:30 mile I hope she isn't looking for fun.

I suppose it depends how she is defining fun - hate to read too much into a messageboard post.

Exactly. I run because I find it to be horribly tedious and oppressively uncomfortable. I didn't realize that there were people out there who ran because they found it to be enjoyable. What is wrong with 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. 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.

While reddit is a rough message board in general, r/running and r/advancedrunning are miles above letsrun when it comes to maturity.

wrongo wrote:

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.

What ***tty advice. I hope no youngster reads that and buys into it. Life is not all about what is fun. Good luck when you are 25 and broken, Mary.

Just the other day on r/running, there was a post about a kid who was having suicide thoughts because of how running was basically his life and his parents and coach wouldn't lighten the load on the guy up a little. One of the quotes from the self-post was "It feels so tempting to just jump right in front of any car that is passing me on the run".

Better to have fun with a sport than to have suicide thoughts because of it.

Also surprised she responded to the poster in your quote because I noticed he spammed that thread badly with almost pointless questions.

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?

Please learn what a bully is. And sticks and stones. You can't handle questions like that don't provide a public platform to do so.

Sticks and stones.

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.

I think you don't know what "literally" means. She's lost plenty of times. Maybe even more than she's won. I also wouldn't call her the most st gifted in 100 years. Maybe 30 (Decker).

She answered plenty of questions. She always does. Some folks are never satisfied.

Some of you are serious jerks.

Mary is 17 years old. She has been nothing but kind and inspirational.

You need to seriously evaluate your life choices if you are publicly criticizing her for an effort to connect with fans.

Yes, the forum is anonymous, but it is foolish to think that Mary will not either read the comments herself, or hear about them from someone else.

She is 17, guys. Seriously?

guhiouuop O wrote:

She must of been prepped by Obama.

Your credibility takes a hit when you're trying to make fun of someone yet you don't seem to know the difference between of and have.

RunWild wrote:

Just the other day on r/running, there was a post about a kid who was having suicide thoughts because of how running was basically his life and his parents and coach wouldn't lighten the load on the guy up a little. One of the quotes from the self-post was "It feels so tempting to just jump right in front of any car that is passing me on the run".

Better to have fun with a sport than to have suicide thoughts because of it.

Also surprised she responded to the poster in your quote because I noticed he spammed that thread badly with almost pointless questions.

That was not my point. (I should check this site more than once a day)

Life is not about having fun. If that's your thought process at 17, you are in for a lifetime of disappointments. It's about as bad as the advice that says, "do what makes you happy."

Have fun when you can, enjoy what you can, but understand that life has it's ups and downs. She will get injured. She will suffer setbacks. How "fun" will that be? If she gives up on her running career because it's not fun anymore, in only her early 20's, then what a waste. When she has to get a job that is not always "fun", will she just quit? There are many young runners who look up to her, and I hate hearing advice like that. Just hate it.

south florida wrote:

The questions she chose to answer were very uninspiring. The most interesting thing I learned is she prefers pancakes to waffles. She's basically a girl with a freak load of talent and nothing else remarkable, assuming she's even clean.

I was disappointed that she didn't mention blueberries.

I think there is a difference between expecting things to be fun all the time, and making the choice to have fun regardless of your circumstances.

guhiouuop O wrote:

She must of been prepped by Obama.

Yeah, it would have been so much funnier had she been prepped by...say...Sarah Palin.

wrongo wrote:

Life is not about having fun.

Actually it is and always should be. Apparently you haven't figured that out. Of course life has it's ups and downs, but work to live, don't live to work. There are very few times I can think of when I'm really not having fun. I don't care if I'm working or about to throw up after hard sprints. It doesn't matter what's going on. You've gotta love it when it sucks and you've gotta be able to laugh. If life isn't about having fun for you, then you're doing it wrong.