Mary Cain hot take

I don't disagree. But I'd say 1) I'm pretty sure salazar promised cain that she'd be on a long term trajectory -hard to believe he followed through with that. He wanted his 3:55 female and he wanted her now and 2) yeah NOP made the inevitablep plateau worse. Agreed.

Well what you have here is one side of a story. And I really doubt that this one side of a story is objective. We can argue if he broke her or not. I think she broke herself. The fact that she were cutting herself shows that she wasn't ok and her problems were much bigger than that of training alone. She's claiming that no one in the NOP gave a jack for her starting with other athletes and ending with coaches, psychiatrists and medical stuff. Honestly it's hard for me to believe in this. I don't think we will ever get to know the entire picture because NOP can't comment publicly on her health issues.

This entire thread is so pointlessly stupid. I've seen it before when discussing Mary Cain in the last week. People come on this thread acting like they have all these innovative and intelligent thoughts like "pro running is hard!" and "she asked for it!", but the reality is that they are just repeating the same antiquated nonsense.

Of course Pro running is hard. That's not a groundbreaking idea, geniuses. You know who understands that Pro running is hard too? Shalane Flanagan. Kara Goucher. Amy Yoder-Begley. Cam Levins. Phoebe Wright. Arianna Lambie. Jonathan Marcus. Nikki Hiltz. Emma Coburn. Aisha Praught-Leer.

If it was really a legitimate "hot take" that Mary should have known "what she was getting into" and that she couldn't handle the CHALLENGE of professional running, how come ALL of these athletes came out in support of her, acknowledging that she was abused and mistreated. Wouldn't these athletes have said "well it's hard, get over it."? Maybe these pro athletes and coaches know more about pro training than the geniuses on this board?

Mary said in the video, that none of you bothered to listen to that it's the SYSTEM that needs to change. For too long female athletes have accepted a system that is abusive and they would better thrive if it changed rather than just accepting it for what it currently is.

It's likely that Cain was willing to put in the miles and push herself during interval training so the entire issue is whether she needed to lose weight to run at her best. Is it necessary for female distance runners to compete at less than their natural weight? Do Simpson, Houlihan and Hassay also include dieting to lose weight in their training.

We know that Salazar was obsessed with runners losing weight and I recall him wanting Webb, who probably had 5% body fat, to lose weight.

My guess is that Cain did not need to lose weight and that Salazar pressuring her to do so was a huge and destructive mistake.

Leanna wrote:

Of course Pro running is hard. That's not a groundbreaking idea, geniuses. You know who understands that Pro running is hard too? Shalane Flanagan. Kara Goucher. Amy Yoder-Begley. Cam Levins. Phoebe Wright. Arianna Lambie. Jonathan Marcus. Nikki Hiltz. Emma Coburn. Aisha Praught-Leer.

If it was really a legitimate "hot take" that Mary should have known "what she was getting into" and that she couldn't handle the CHALLENGE of professional running, how come ALL of these athletes came out in support of he

The vast majority of professional athletes have not come out to support her. Only a small, outspoken handful have.

Also some of the people you listed have never been professional athletes which makes your post less credible.

You're right. Tom Brady hasn't. Serena Williams hasn't. I guess the post is not credible then.

ALL listed have been professional athletes or have coached professional athletes. *flips hair* Take many seats.

Rupp Fan Boy wrote:

Leanna wrote:

Of course Pro running is hard. That's not a groundbreaking idea, geniuses. You know who understands that Pro running is hard too? Shalane Flanagan. Kara Goucher. Amy Yoder-Begley. Cam Levins. Phoebe Wright. Arianna Lambie. Jonathan Marcus. Nikki Hiltz. Emma Coburn. Aisha Praught-Leer.

If it was really a legitimate "hot take" that Mary should have known "what she was getting into" and that she couldn't handle the CHALLENGE of professional running, how come ALL of these athletes came out in support of he

The vast majority of professional athletes have not come out to support her. Only a small, outspoken handful have.

Also some of the people you listed have never been professional athletes which makes your post less credible.

The fact that few professional athletes have come out to support her does not mean much to me. The fact that none have denied her allegations other than Jordan's you weren't tough enough non-denial.

Of the people around her with NOP at the time this was going on all were Nike athletes and most still are. They can't come out and say their sponsor's highly touted elite program was engaging in this behavior without career repercussions. They've been told to keep a lid on it.

Excellent post.

There's been a lot of discussion on these boards about the young female runners who perform phenonemally well and then their improvement stops. This seems to happen with about 8 out of 10 young runners. I don't think Salazar is responsible for Mary Cain hitting her ceiling, and Mary needs to understand that hitting her ceiling is what actually happened.

However, I do think her complaints about the brutality and callousness of his training methods are 100% on the mark - entirely inappropriate, especially for an 18 year old.

Leanna wrote:Mary said in the video, that none of you bothered to listen to that it's the SYSTEM that needs to change. For too long female athletes have accepted a system that is abusive and they would better thrive if it changed rather than just accepting it for what it currently is.

Sure. Have all the female athletes coached by other females (and not the nasty Karen Harvey types either) in nurturing, caring, "healthy" environments where everyone's self esteem is maximized and let's see how many WR-holders are produced. (spoiler alert - zero).

Segregate the sexes.

Protect the delicate women.

C0l0rado wrote:

Youngest-ever national record holder and high school star athlete are pretty far removed. Cain was literally the most promising female runner in all of America, so to argue that she "didn't have the talent" as you attempted to do was obviously a sign of remarkably stupidity. Therefore I called you an idiot.

If you pay attention in other sports this happens all the time. All the time. You know you are wrong and you’re just digging yourself deeper. Calling me names won’t change any of that.

Man Overboard wrote:

Leanna wrote:Mary said in the video, that none of you bothered to listen to that it's the SYSTEM that needs to change. For too long female athletes have accepted a system that is abusive and they would better thrive if it changed rather than just accepting it for what it currently is.

Sure. Have all the female athletes coached by other females (and not the nasty Karen Harvey types either) in nurturing, caring, "healthy" environments where everyone's self esteem is maximized and let's see how many WR-holders are produced. (spoiler alert - zero).

Segregate the sexes.

Protect the delicate women.

You got this totally backwards homie. It’s about covering your a$$ as a male coach in this absurd man hating environment.

I'm curious what happened in April when she reached out to Alberto. It sounded like she visited her team again - was this on her own dime or theirs? Alberto wanted her back too? Why did it fall apart after April and why didn't she rejoin them? If her parents were so horrified by what happened initially, how could a second try at the NOP ever been on the table?

People here are such drama queens. They act like Mary returned from years of fighting in the rice paddies of Vietnam and came home with PTSD. For goodness sake, she was a professional runner who was told by a coach to lose weight, nothing more nothing less.

Now she has been away from NOP for years. She’s had plenty of time to find a kinder and gentler coach and finally meet her destiny of being a world class women runner. But she hasn’t made much progress in that endeavor. Oh yes I know, she was so emotionally scarred that she was completely incapable of regaining fitness and achieving her true destiny under a different coach, system and environment.

Too much drama here wrote:

People here are such drama queens. They act like Mary returned from years of fighting in the rice paddies of Vietnam and came home with PTSD. For goodness sake, she was a professional runner who was told by a coach to lose weight, nothing more nothing less.

Now she has been away from NOP for years. She’s had plenty of time to find a kinder and gentler coach and finally meet her destiny of being a world class women runner. But she hasn’t made much progress in that endeavor. Oh yes I know, she was so emotionally scarred that she was completely incapable of regaining fitness and achieving her true destiny under a different coach, system and environment.

Yep, if she really wanted to she could have gone to any of the programs out there and tried to make a go of it, but instead she plays victim and blames AlSal.

Not every great HS athlete goes on to great success in the pros, there are thousands of HS basketball phenoms, football players, etc that go through this every stinkin year.

This happy time at the local turkey trot, this is real world, high end top of level pro athletics and it is a cut throat industry, Mary just happend to be one of the many that can't make it in that world, either due to her body or her brain- maybe both.

Mary Cain might have had a lot of potential, but maybe also ran into a "cap" to it once she matured. The transition from girl to woman is a massive biological chasm for athletes. For better or worse, Mary Decker-Slaney remains the GOAT girl-to-woman athlete in U.S. history (ironically with a little "help" from Alberto near the end).

Too much drama here wrote:

People here are such drama queens. They act like Mary returned from years of fighting in the rice paddies of Vietnam and came home with PTSD. For goodness sake, she was a professional runner who was told by a coach to lose weight, nothing more nothing less.

Now she has been away from NOP for years. She’s had plenty of time to find a kinder and gentler coach and finally meet her destiny of being a world class women runner. But she hasn’t made much progress in that endeavor. Oh yes I know, she was so emotionally scarred that she was completely incapable of regaining fitness and achieving her true destiny under a different coach, system and environment.

Exactly.

Where were her parents in these years (until she was 18)? After that she was responsible for her own being.

A professional running group is no cozy girl scout camp. She and her parents should have known that.

I can't imagine that she was held in chains either. She probably could have left the program earlier.

It's time that people take on some responsibilities for themselves.

Look up VICTIM-BLAMING. You might learn something.

There is a long road to drive between "cozy girl scout camp" and the abuse that she suffered. Professional running environments don't have to be abusive.

Dadfan wrote:

https://www.runnersworld.com/races-places/a20841935/what-its-like-to-be-coached-by-alberto-salazar/

At least according to this runner, AlSal was on the forefront of keeping his athletes healthy by promoting alternatives to road miles. I had the opportunity to interview Alberto, Galen and Centrowitz. Both of the runners heavily emphasized how Alberto was ALWAYS trying something new. Maybe not as cutting edge as you are but I think your analysis of Salazar's methods are under-informed. Trust me, I am not into how he purportedly treated Mary Cain but there's a reason she asked back in. Just look at the results he helped produce at this most recent World Champs. And when it comes to doping, just a reminder here, the decision clearly states that he was not found guilty of doping athletes.

My daughter is in competitive gymnastics at a high level. I have seen first hand how coaches have their favorites, and can treat some of their athletes very well, and be very hard on other athletes, even when it is not warranted. I think it is very likely that both Caitlin and Mary’s accounts of their experiences with Alberto are truthful and accurate.