Mary Cain is Officially DONE

nice post.

but to be fair...I'd say there are many more examples of a steady endless downward trajectory than the sort of 'one bad year' example you cite.

andrews, fernandez, solinsky, wheating, hall, uceny, willard, salazar, every female footlocker winner....

agreed again.

I always have grave doubts about 'changing form' - all that energy, mental and physical, that goes into 'changing form' is now not available for making progress in a forward direction. Any form change that can't be quickly internalized and made unconscious will have this effect..

No-one can deduce running economy from form, as Dr. Daniels proved many years ago; no-one has ever shown improved performance from form changes alone. Evidence-based coaching should not be attempting it..

hope that we are all wrong and this is just a temporary setback for Mary..

mary cain is the same age as a freshman in college. you all need to relax and think how good she will be in 5-6 years from now

jmoyala wrote:

I feel sorry for Miss Cain. Not so much for her poor results this year but for the online comments that she gets. Hard to remember that she is age wise only a college frosh. .

Is that an age.!

Why can you lot not just put someone age instead of referring to their year at school or college. Especially when the college runners nowadays are different ages in the same year!

ukathleticscoach wrote:

jmoyala wrote:

I feel sorry for Miss Cain. Not so much for her poor results this year but for the online comments that she gets. Hard to remember that she is age wise only a college frosh. .

Is that an age.!

Why can you lot not just put someone age instead of referring to their year at school or college. Especially when the college runners nowadays are different ages in the same year!

Maturity is more correlated to their year at school/college than to actual age.

Decker got back after running poorly because she decided that it was time to dope. No dope, no hope. Cain turning pro was a bad move in hindsight. The pro ranks require single minded focus and the dope. Rupp, Farah learned that and soon little bubbly Mary will have to as well or it's bye bye NOP.

Bye bye NOP

Bye bye happiness, hello loneliness

I think I'm-a gonna cry-y

Bye bye NOP, bye bye sleazy caress, hello emptiness

I feel like I could di-ie

Bye bye my dope goodby-eye

Mary could just finish out her contract, say f*ck you to letsrun, nike, and all that crap, go to school and do something completely different and still totally be a success in life. No big deal.

Anyone remember the original two Salazar kids in the great experiement: Galen Rupp and Caitlin Chock. Rupp strived and Chock floundered. Anyone think the Salazar training method works for more mature women and not as good with younger aged?

kindergarten teacher wrote:

ukathleticscoach wrote:

Is that an age.!

Why can you lot not just put someone age instead of referring to their year at school or college. Especially when the college runners nowadays are different ages in the same year!

Maturity is more correlated to their year at school/college than to actual age.

Garbage

ukathleticscoach wrote:

kindergarten teacher wrote:

Maturity is more correlated to their year at school/college than to actual age.

Garbage

When you finish school you will understand.

kindergarten teacher wrote:

ukathleticscoach wrote:

Garbage

When you finish school you will understand.

and that is a school yard response the same as mine. the only difference is mine was a summary whereas your is a more personal attack

Is a 23 year old Kenyan or post grad from Britain at the same athletic level as an 18 year old American. I hope you don't teach biology. Now get back to your marking and changing your user name

Give the age of the runner

ukathleticscoach wrote:

same athletic level

The maturity that we're discussing here is very different from athletic level.

The length of education is a much more significant indicator of maturity level than a few months of age either way. You're way off.

old and in the way wrote:

agreed again.

I always have grave doubts about 'changing form' - all that energy, mental and physical, that goes into 'changing form' is now not available for making progress in a forward direction. Any form change that can't be quickly internalized and made unconscious will have this effect..

No-one can deduce running economy from form, as Dr. Daniels proved many years ago; no-one has ever shown improved performance from form changes alone. Evidence-based coaching should not be attempting it..

hope that we are all wrong and this is just a temporary setback for Mary..

To be sure, I'm a big believer that mechanics are exceptionally important. The mistake I believe Salazar made was not understanding how great Mary's form was before he got to her. He just saw the forearms crossing her centerline and didn't see the bigger picture of how that helped her axial rotation.

Now on the surface it appears that her form is great, but she isn't rotating axially around her spinal column very well, and therefore isn't at the same mechanical advantage she was before.

I'm sure she's also at least 6% heavier based on my eyeball-scale. A 6% increase in weight would account for a 4% decline in speed if power output stayed the same.

I have no doubt she can regain her previous levels of performance, but it will take a combination of finding her old stride and losing 3-4 lbs ahead of her important races.

We shouldn't worry too much, but a young athletes psyche is fragile, which means SHE is worrying. And that is worrisome in itself.

[quote]billy bobby wrote:

[quote]old and in the way wrote:

agreed again.

utter nonsense

you are well out of your depth here

[No-one can deduce running economy from form, as Dr. Daniels proved many years ago; no-one has ever shown improved performance from form changes alone. Evidence-based coaching should not be attempting it.. ]

cain is capable of 4'10 --->4'05 with current form in lane 1 no boxing

if she loses 3-4 lbs she will be in range of 3'52/8'30 -----> 3'55/8'51

this is years of experience and observation!

salzarar is on the right traack here just like he was iwth rupps 12'51---->26'25

Clear view wrote:

Cain's lackluster performance suggests over-training. The workout-after-races routine is a grind and probably doesn't work for everyone. Hopefully, Salazar will ease off a bit on her training and refrain from making performance predictions which puts added pressure on his athletes.

Is this really going to get her back to 4:04/4:05 shape soon? She isn't even in the same universe right now. Everyone hopes she will run fast again, But, this is def trouble time

Let's face it she isn't going to make the WC Team. She will be lucky is she runs 4.10 this year. If not back to 4.04 in 2016 she might as well retire

Look at the Stanford thread that's currently running. These young women take a lot on their plates - something has to give whether it's Stanford or Portland. Of course you can skim through college classes. But Cain probably came to Portland planning a pre-med curriculum. Tough and time consuming, and then there are many hours a day of conditioning for track. Unlike the Stanford women, Mary Cain has world class talent, so maybe she can sort it all out.

Purely from an outsider's POV, it's probably a combination of things. Having a boyfriend, overtraining/coaching, and physical maturation.