Mary Cain Is Taking a Break from the Nike Oregon Project

Why the focus on Princeton? It seems an unlikely option.

Over the past six years, fewer students from her high school have gone to Princeton than to any Ivy League school. Interestingly, nobody from her HS has gone to Stanford, which might seem a natural place for her.

One, however, has gone to the University of Portland!

Could she be going through a lot of the same things Webb went through when he was at Michigan?

He returned home and returned to form.

Yeah Salazar was giving her workouts but someone else was monitoring them and guiding her. Maybe that change in feedback from what she had before to how Al coaches is too much. Same workouts but different approaches during them and different motivators outside of them.

Racer Joe wrote:

You can say that now, but if she had gone to the NCAA and started running 4:15's we'd all be talking about what a mistake that was and how the NCAA is ruining her. Having a slump around age 18-20 is normal for female runners.

THIS

especially if she had gone to stanford

How do you know that? wrote:

Over the past six years, fewer students from her high school have gone to Princeton than to any Ivy League school. Interestingly, nobody from her HS has gone to Stanford, which might seem a natural place for her.

Between running and her academics she would have had no problem getting into Princeton or anywhere else

txRUNNERgirl wrote:

umass track wrote:

If you dont think ten pounds of weight makes a difference you're delusional. I dropped 10 pounds of upper body muscle over the course of spring track and the difference was night and day (30 seconds or so in the steeple, not all the weight but definitely felt the difference late in races). And thats going from 170 to 160, which is a much smaller difference than 110-120.

You're talking about a female who is 5'7 and listed at 110 lbs. Even if she went to 120, she's still very thin. She's a professional athlete, not a frat boy who gained a beer gut. Any weight she has gained is there for a reason and if it's not, her training should either burn it off or convert it to useful muscle. What I'm saying is blaming weight gain for someone to be "done" is a cop-out.

Not sure if you are trolling here or maybe just not able to see logically due to being a female yourself.

110 ---> 120 = 9% gain in weight. 9% gain in weight of anything but blood is going to slow a distance runner down, by approximately (9% *.62 = 5.58%)

4:04 * 1.0558 = 4:17

That's all it is. She's heavy relative to her former self. We aren't arguing 5'7" 120 isn't extremely thin, duh, we all know that. But it doesn't take much muscle to run 65 second 400s.

And it's not that she just turned into a woman and her bones all magically changed in a couple month span. She is just too heavy. Period. Her face looks soft for an elite endurance athlete. She's actually prettier because of it, but pretty isn't fast. Looking like you are sick is fast. Actually being sick, of course, is not fast. But it's a fine line. And she's on the healthy/slow side of the line right now. If she wants to run fast she needs to get closer to the healthy/sick-looking/fast side of the line.

Again, I'm not saying she should cross over to the sick/sick-looking/fast side of the line, but if you want to see pictures of that look up Amber Trotter when she was in HS. There is fine balance and it takes time.

Mary will figure it out.

txRUNNERgirl wrote:

You're talking about a female who is 5'7 and listed at 110 lbs. Even if she went to 120, she's still very thin. She's a professional athlete, not a frat boy who gained a beer gut. Any weight she has gained is there for a reason and if it's not, her training should either burn it off or convert it to useful muscle. What I'm saying is blaming weight gain for someone to be "done" is a cop-out.

10lbs on a 110lb athlete would be significant enough to slow her results if that is the case. It would certainly be one potential cause.

Done? No.

I posted about this over the fall. This type of thing is extremely common for women this age.

From my earlier post

This is a pattern for many female distance runners. They improve rapidly when growing, but hit a point where they have to grow into their body. In the short term, it looks like regression, but in the long term, the body is stronger.

Case in point: Simpson

In high school:

http://archive.dyestat.com/3im...r%20FL.jpg

In early college:

http://www.colorado.edu/inside...ringer.jpg

Now:

http://www4.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Jenny+Simpson+USATF+Outdoor+Championships+hJSgLj4DCiJl.jpg

Which Simpson is best? Now, of course, but she had to grow through an awkward stage first. Didn't see a terrible amount of improvement in college at first, except in the steeple, which was a relatively new event to her.

Read more:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&id=5888489&thread=5885785#5888489#ixzz3bOZVjXHV

Mary Cain will be fine, as long as she stays in it mentally. Going pro when she did probably did make it more difficult, but she would have been under scrutiny because of how phenomenal she was. Give her 6 months-1 year.

It used to be called the Freshman 10. These day they call it the freshman 15.

"The purported causes of this weight gain [in college freshman] are increased alcohol intake and the consumption of fat and carbohydrate-rich cafeteria-style food and fast food in university dormitories. Many dining halls in American universities are all-you-can-eat style and offer copious dessert choices. In addition, lack of sleep may lead to overeating and weight gain, because it lowers the level of leptin."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshman_15

I like your theory but can't analyze it as yoru first two links are bad links. Please repost the photos.

Sorry, links not working

Jenny hs

http://archive.dyestat.com/3image/3xc/footlocker/final/intro-south/SO%20Barringer,%20Jennifer%20FL.jpg

Jenny early college

http://www.colorado.edu/insidecu/editions/2006/6-13/photos/barringer.jpg

Jenny now

http://www4.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Jenny+Simpson+USATF+Outdoor+Championships+hJSgLj4DCiJl.jpg

Doesn't she live fairly close to you? Perhaps you could call Alberto and offer to take her off his hands for awhile.

I'll hereby admit I was mistaken. She probably should have gone to college and ran there.

However, not sure I buy the womanhood argument. Most women are what they are by 16. Girls hit adolescence early. A dramatic change at 19 would be odd, no?

Now, could she have put on 10 "party pounds"? Sure I suppose. That has nothing to do with puberty though.

Hopefully this all works out. The Jenny photos are telling. Telling that you need to live a hard core life to be a pro runner.

2012:

http://www.imageofsport.com/image/19727528

2013:

http://www.imageofsport.com/image/22415323

2014:

http://www.imageofsport.com/image/26000633

2015:

http://www.imageofsport.com/image/28195268

I purposefully chose face shots b/c you don't need to analyze her q-angle or whatever to see that she has grown up a lot in the past year. There will be an adjustment period.

This is Mary Cain at 16. Sorry I just don't agree.

http://c2971522.r22.cf0.rackcdn.com/BFKeAFbSQiN8XXk8eEvt.jpg

The point is, there are many female runners who have gone through such a time and not ever run as well again. However, there are VERY few currently successful female runners who have NOT gone through such a transition in physical maturation. Like I said, give it time, we will see. Mary will have to handle this well mentally to come out the other side well.

Shes put on about 10 pounds, my freshman year of college I put on about 20. Plus the kid is trying to major in chemistry and be a professional runner, I forsee a lot more late night cram sessions fuled with donuts and pizza in her future. Ah, organic chemistry and physics, the good ole days.

Yeah because he has totally coached so many high school prodigies.

And how would Princeton be a good athletic fit? Even running 4:15 she would be the best 1500 meter runner on the team by over ten seconds. If she was actually in form she'd be ten MORE seconds ahead.

^^^a million times this. Sad fact, but true much more often then not. How many 8th grade girls are early phenoms and never even make it out of high school what they were when they started... She is smart and from what I gather a great person. She'll get a head start on life.

HardLoper wrote:

Between running and her academics she would have had no problem getting into Princeton or anywhere else

You are probably right, although as someone who's done admissions at an Ivy League school, I can tell you there are no guarantees.

But still, i am curious as to why the focus on Princeton. Is the Princeton track program really better than any of the other Ivys? Or is it that it's the closest to where Gags' group works out? Or is "Princeton" just LRC chatter for "fancy-pants Eastern school"?

It looks like Lauren Fleshman pretty much called it two years ago:

"As a female, it's a long road. When you're young, your hormonal profile is more like a guy, more testosterone and less estrogen. Your strength-to-weight ratio is incredible. But you can't fight nature forever. Very, very few women escape a few years of fighting their bodies. Mary is an incredible talent. Probably works her butt off. She's going to have a great, long career, and she will have some challenges and injuries along the way."

Let's hope she's right about Cain having "a great, long career."