Mary Cain to race triathlon this weekend

Oooo wrote:

I was simply bringing in Trouard and Klau to give perspective to the Cain apologist.

I was simply trying to show that no, it’s not “ok” for someone training with pros to do such slow transitions. Trouard stated triathlons after Cain and he did ok yesterday. He got some real race experience yesterday and today, he was just as fast as the top guys. Remember, these are not pros that he is racing this weekend.

On the swim, he was right up there. No excuse about swimming 150m more than everybody.

Reality is that he did ok. First yesterday and second today. He is now a pro. However, there is nothing that indicates (yet) that he will be a top US pro. He was not able to make the break on the bike today (remember this is weak field). He only ran 16:10 on the run (there’s a woman who ran 16:58 yesterday and she is far from being a top women triathlete). Again, he WON yesterday.

Cain was 23rd. There is nothing that indicates that she will ever get her pro card. She is light years away from that.

Getting a pro card is something that Trouard, Klau… were able to do on their first try within 6 months of starting triathlon training. Neither have done anything yet to show that they will be top US pros.

NERunner03533 wrote:

Oooo wrote:

I was simply bringing in Trouard and Klau to give perspective to the Cain apologist.

I was simply trying to show that no, it’s not “ok” for someone training with pros to do such slow transitions. Trouard stated triathlons after Cain and he did ok yesterday. He got some real race experience yesterday and today, he was just as fast as the top guys. Remember, these are not pros that he is racing this weekend.

On the swim, he was right up there. No excuse about swimming 150m more than everybody.

Reality is that he did ok. First yesterday and second today. He is now a pro. However, there is nothing that indicates (yet) that he will be a top US pro. He was not able to make the break on the bike today (remember this is weak field). He only ran 16:10 on the run (there’s a woman who ran 16:58 yesterday and she is far from being a top women triathlete). Again, he WON yesterday.

Cain was 23rd. There is nothing that indicates that she will ever get her pro card. She is light years away from that.

Getting a pro card is something that Trouard, Klau… were able to do on their first try within 6 months of starting triathlon training. Neither have done anything yet to show that they will be top US pros.

I don't necessarily disagree with a lot of this and have been trying to explain some of the ins/outs of triathlon training/racing over the last few days.

My guess is that Trouard is a lot closer to his running best -- he ran 14:05 at the US 5k Champs in November & was competitive, beating some decent pro runners.

I will say that, on the surface, Cain's Day 1 result was a surprise. Her score rating from a sprint tri on no training would have put her ~15th at Clermont last year. She finished 23rd on Saturday. Maybe the field was deeper but that reads as making no improvement, maybe even having a worse day. & she definitely trained more. But -- light years away from her pro card? She is swimming/running good enough to earn it. I can see an athlete going from high-90s to a mid-100s score rating in one season, especially when that athlete is undertrained.

I stand by my last post -- she should try the non-draft legal stuff. Transitions matter less. Might be a better fit for her until she gets the technical stuff down. LRCers want her to do poorly. I don't get it. It's good to see her racing again.

fisky wrote:

Imnotaspy wrote:

Evidently, she had some trouble on the bike. She came out of the swim in the second pack, very close to the eventual top 3 women (low 11 min.), but lost over three minutes on the bike (31-34+ minutes). She had one of the top 5 run times, but the fastest woman ran 16:59 to Cain's 18:37. Her bike was bottom 10 slowest, maybe flatted? Final place 23/55 finishers. Story needed.

Something went wrong on the bike, I agree. She lost about 3 minutes on the bike. Women who were behind her on the swim finished ahead of her by the finish. Maybe it was mechanical or for some reason she couldn't hang on to the paceline? Hopefully, we'll get an update.

She also lost roughly 15 seconds on T1 and 45 seconds on T2 compared to the women who finished ahead of her. That's not compared to the best T1 and T2 times; that's roughly the median (just eyeballing) of the times of the women ahead of her. Even the women in the botton third were faster in transition.

This puzzles me. Why didn't her coach have her work more on transitions? You can't expect to compete against high level triathletes if you spot them a full minute in the transitions.

But the first race of the season is the baseline for improvement. It's obvious where she needs to improve. She needs to practice transitions, cycling, and bricks.

sandy p wrote:

NERunner03533 wrote:

I don't necessarily disagree with a lot of this and have been trying to explain some of the ins/outs of triathlon training/racing over the last few days.

My guess is that Trouard is a lot closer to his running best -- he ran 14:05 at the US 5k Champs in November & was competitive, beating some decent pro runners.

I will say that, on the surface, Cain's Day 1 result was a surprise. Her score rating from a sprint tri on no training would have put her ~15th at Clermont last year. She finished 23rd on Saturday. Maybe the field was deeper but that reads as making no improvement, maybe even having a worse day. & she definitely trained more. But -- light years away from her pro card? She is swimming/running good enough to earn it. I can see an athlete going from high-90s to a mid-100s score rating in one season, especially when that athlete is undertrained.

I stand by my last post -- she should try the non-draft legal stuff. Transitions matter less. Might be a better fit for her until she gets the technical stuff down. LRCers want her to do poorly. I don't get it. It's good to see her racing again.

How is she running good enough with an 18:37 good enough for a pro card?

fisky wrote:

I read her Strava report. In T1, someone (apparently) took her sunglasses so she wasted some time looking for them. She also had trouble clicking her helmet and commented how hard it was to put on shoes.

In my (extremely) limited experience with duathlons, I learned that there were tricks to putting on shoes, tricks to laying out your gear, even which hand to use to pick up the helmet. If she trained under a pro coach, shouldn't she have been taught all this? Shouldn't he have required her to practice transitions over and over?

I imagine that racing a bike without sunglasses would be difficult. Plus, from her comments, it appears that she might have ridden solo instead of in a paceline. Riding solo could have cost her a couple of minutes or more.

I see how not being able to find your sunglasses would slow down T1, but there's no excuse for T2. Either she gave up or she simply didn't practice it enough.

Anyway, hopefully, this is a wakeup call.

And one other question... shouldn't a pro coach have prepared her to avoid these rookie problems... shoes, helmet, swimming wide, transitions, legs heavy after the bike?