Mary Cain admits to long-standing running issues

Being mentally tough will not prevent having 5 stress fractures and many runners have developed internal discipline as early as their freshman year in HS.

It just seems like people are gong around in a circle. Cain complains about how she was treated and coached at NOP, and if you accept what she says, she has a very good point. Even conceding that Cain's own choices were poor and that she shoud never have joined a pro team at that age, this does not change the fact that what she describes is horrendously bad coaching that ignored the longterm health and development of the athlete. People then claim that she would not have developed or that she ultimately did not have world class ability or about work ethic, but these thing simply cannot be separated from a young, developing athlete suffering multiple stress fractures that permanently impaired her ability to run at a competitive level.

I agree with you BUT we also should never say older runners would just beat modern runners just because they were good back then. I firmly believe modern runners are better in general.

With that being said. For what it's worth I do think Mary cain is the US High school Goat regardless of the new spikes. I hope Mary can return to the elite side of the sport. She was an exciting runner.

Ritz is an exception. He ran 12:56/27:22/60:00/2:07:47 pr's all with Salazar. That included a world half marathon medal and the American record at 5000m. Unfortunately, the first three were all in his first year with Salazar and that was followed by an ill advised heel surgery that led to an infection and a lot of lost time.

I saw her pic on a random IG running post. She was doing some hobby jogger group run promotion. My first reaction was she is simply too big now to be running fast. Nothing wrong with that. She looks like a normal person but definitely not an elite level runner. It could be just be she peaked early and this is just a natural transition. She was incredibly fast just before joining Nike and a little bit of time after that.

How odd for you to make up something completely different to what I said and then attribute it to me.

Can't you correlate stress fractures to running a high number of 3000m and 5000m track races while still a child? Are you unaware that human bones and musculature are still forming then and that stress should be limited and coupled with plenty of rest...to avoid stress reactions?

You seem to think that normal maturation that occurs in all female athletes is somehow a barrier, rather than training. Mary hasn't developed physically in a way which would prevent elite level athletics, but like every athlete, she needs to train and watch her diet. That doesn't mean losing weight, it means eating healthily and controlling what she eats for most of the year so that she develops the physique of an elite level athlete. We already know that American athletes think eating fast food from burger stalls after training is normal but again, its not. Plenty of people start out with bodies that don't resemble elite level athletes. You are suggesting that Mary is in some special class that makes this impossible? What evidence do you have for this?

As to the other poster who thinks that obsessing about children and teenagers is normal outwith the US - no, its not. I don't think anyone in my country obsessed about Jakob Ingebrigtsen in the way that people do on this board. Jakob is an outlier anyway - all of the Ingebrigtsen family seem to mature early athletically and then tail off when in their mid to late twenties. That might also be due to starting training hard so young as well but even so there was more control of what Jakob was doing and his progression whereas Mary was thrown in the deep end and the American public assumed that if she could run those times as a child, she would run even faster as an adult. In reality, she was already running at her limit while her body was still growing and its unbelievable that her parents, coaches and the public thought this was a good idea.

But yes, you go and label it on her "not having an athlete's body" and keep making the same mistakes with the next Mary Cain that comes along. While American athletes continue to win almost nothing at elite level despite your massive population.

Curious what you base this statement on. She is a relatively healthy, lean person, and yet she still does not look like an elite runner. No knock on her -- plenty of HS kids in all sports turn out not to have an elite body for their particular sport -- but I think your statement is just observably wrong.

She doesn't look like Coburn or Frerichs or Schweizer. They are ripped.

Imo, I don't think she was psychologically ready to skip college competition (even for a couple of years) and go pro. To me it looks very disjointed ie go pro and attend college in the local area but not compete for them, and the fact she went from the east coast to the west coast to do that, which is a huge transition. It's like she was living in two different worlds at the same time.

The threat of being fired will cause many fantasies of bravery to back down wimpering in a corner.

Thank you for reposting this and supporting free speech.

The post seems pretty innocent and accurate. Every person can't have an elite body but every elite runner needs to be ultra fit. I doubt Fisher or Schweizer would be the best in the US if they didn't train like crazy. Everyone agrees with that but some don't want to admit that weight gain is similar. Runners need sleep and good nutrition and training and coaching and lifting. Nothing controversial.

Did Cain receive good nutrition or did Salazar have her counting calories? They aren’t the same thing. I doubt Fisher needs to worry about his weight. With his level of training, it would be next to impossible for him to put on excess weight.

Dan Browne didn't run his best? He made the Olympics in two events and was arguably the top 10k runner in the nation. Salazar did an excellent job with him and more than maximized his potential.

This is what Salazar said about Ritz’s 5000m record:

“Brad Hudson made the cake," Salazar said. "I'm just putting the frosting on it."

Maybe he was just being modest, but that was the peak racing performance of Ritz’s career and there would be no more additional frosting.

Do you gals know anything about this sport?

Dan Browne and Hasay should obviously not be on this list. Browne ran 13:16, 27:42, and made the Olympic Team in both the 10,000 and Marathon under Salazar. Hasay's 5/10/marathon bests all came under Salazar.

You know whats even better than getting deleted because you are so bad? Actually getting undeleted and having an asterisk saying that the very folks who run the message board are admitting they need to hold their nose in the name of dumb free speech. You come with a warning that you are horrible.