Mary Cain Is Taking a Break from the Nike Oregon Project

I don't believe this situation is anything more than an injury. Elites get injured like everyone else. She gained weight bc she wasn't running! It's not like she went away to college and started eating and drinking like a normal non-running college freshman. She's smarter than that and if she wasn't she has a coach that would have reminded her. Cain never was a waif and didn't suddenly go through puberty. She is full grown and not an anorexic HS star with an elevated aerobic capacity.

The academics at Portland can also be crossed off the list. Please! Her HS classes were more difficult than Portland. Bronxville is a super elite NE HS. If you didn't go to school in the tri-stare mixing bowl you will not understand. Why even enrolled!

Not sure why she isn't rehabbing with her coach present. Hasay is hurt and still traveling with NOP. My guess is Cain doesn't have a prayer to make the team at nationals so they pulled the plug on the season.

fingers crossed wrote:

My hope is she leaves NOP & transfers to a college closer to home. Obviously she won't be eligible to compete for the school's running teams but she could still train at a pro level with a different coach/group.

Is her not running collegiately completely a done deal? Could she pay back her professional earnings over the last year (can it be that much?) and regain her eligibility just as Galen did prior to going to U of O?

Teenagers get homesick.

Did mary decker encounter a similar slump?

pre841 wrote:

fingers crossed wrote:

My hope is she leaves NOP & transfers to a college closer to home. Obviously she won't be eligible to compete for the school's running teams but she could still train at a pro level with a different coach/group.

Is her not running collegiately completely a done deal? Could she pay back her professional earnings over the last year (can it be that much?) and regain her eligibility just as Galen did prior to going to U of O?

Love it. Everyone forgets about how Rupp went pro and was allowed, for some reason, to pay a small amount of money and then have full NCAA eligibility. No one but Salazar with nike connections would be allowed to do this in a million years. Disgusting. Sorry to rant.

The is Karma at its best... It has nothing to do with weight or her results. This is her Bronxville HS experience all overall again. Her true colors have finally shown and many knew it was just a matter of time. She is not as nice as people think, and her parents are to blame! They are hypocritical a-holes who hide behind the bible. The stepped on, insulted, disrespected so many people along the way and it was just a matter of time before it caught up to them... Would love to know what her arrogant a-hole of a father is thinking now... THEY ALWAYS PLAY THIS VICTIM and this is no different!!

Karma@ItsBest wrote:

The is Karma at its best... It has nothing to do with weight or her results. This is her Bronxville HS experience all overall again. Her true colors have finally shown and many knew it was just a matter of time. She is not as nice as people think, and her parents are to blame! They are hypocritical a-holes who hide behind the bible. The stepped on, insulted, disrespected so many people along the way and it was just a matter of time before it caught up to them... Would love to know what her arrogant a-hole of a father is thinking now... THEY ALWAYS PLAY THIS VICTIM and this is no different!!

You don't seem nice yourself. 1/10 troll.

Fill me in wrote:

Did mary decker encounter a similar slump?

Decker was crippled with injuries, Cain is stalled with changing body shape and weight.

Who cares? She could win multiple gold medals or never compete again and it doesn't matter at all. The significance of her results became less than zero the second that she jumped on the NOPe dope train.

Karma@ItsBest wrote:

The is Karma at its best... It has nothing to do with weight or her results. This is her Bronxville HS experience all overall again. Her true colors have finally shown and many knew it was just a matter of time. She is not as nice as people think, and her parents are to blame! They are hypocritical a-holes who hide behind the bible. The stepped on, insulted, disrespected so many people along the way and it was just a matter of time before it caught up to them... Would love to know what her arrogant a-hole of a father is thinking now... THEY ALWAYS PLAY THIS VICTIM and this is no different!!

I wouldn't put it exactly like this, but if you followed the drama at BHS, it was pretty silly. Definitely the parents fault and it led to Salazar. Perhaps this is the start of good decision making.

weighting game wrote:

Cain is stalled with changing body shape and weight.

Same body shape, changed weight.

I've been trying to sleep for hours. I even have sponge curlers in my hair like Sandra Dee. You're supposed to be asleep. You're running way too much, buster.

asdfasfdsf wrote:

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.

I agree, but playing devil's advocate, one might say that it would be good for her to workout solo at this stage to ensure that she doesn't race her workouts or go to the well too often. You can certainly continue to develop while working out solo, and while your progress might be a little slower, at least you're less likely to burn out.

On the other hand, she was already world class, and even if she just stayed the same and didn't improve AT ALL, then the only competition she would get was going to be at world class summer meets. If she was going to run those meets anyway, then she might as well get paid for it. Running in the NCAA only makes sense if you assume that she's going to get worse. So, no, I'm not going to admit being wrong for saying that going pro was the right move. Running in college would have been planning to fail.

Moreover, we absolutely cannot know what would've happened if she ran in the NCAA. Sure it's possible that she gained weight (and, yes, it's beyond obvious that weight is what's slowing her down) because of the emotional stress of moving far away and training under an intense coach. But it's not obvious that college running would have prevented her problems. In fact, you hear from professionals over and over again that one of the biggest differences between college and professional running is that the pros are much better with their nutrition. And that doesn't just mean being skinny. It means being healthy as well.

If I recall, Erin Donohue ran at 5'7" and was 143 pounds and did just fine. Ran in the Olys, etc. The weight makes a difference but not that much.

stop the bs wrote:

weighting game wrote:

Cain is stalled with changing body shape and weight.

Same body shape, changed weight.

If you put on weight your shape changes.

Do any of you even remember what the transition from HS running to college running was like?

Welcome to morning practice, weight and flexibility work, mile repeats where the best kids on the team are running your HS PR again and again. Being so tired that you can't even sleep at nights because your own heartbeat is keeping you awake. The drunks on your floor waking you up at 3 AM. Not eating vegetables because the cafeteria food sucks.

Oh-- by the way-- she skipped college running and moved straight to the pros.

Give her time, lads. She'll figure this out.

From Lane 3 wrote:

if you followed the drama at BHS, it was pretty silly. Definitely the parents fault and it led to Salazar. Perhaps this is the start of good decision making.

Or not.

Helicopter parents making a freshman miserable? It's been done.

4runner wrote:

Do any of you even remember what the transition from HS running to college running was like?

Welcome to morning practice, weight and flexibility work, mile repeats where the best kids on the team are running your HS PR again and again. Being so tired that you can't even sleep at nights because your own heartbeat is keeping you awake. The drunks on your floor waking you up at 3 AM. Not eating vegetables because the cafeteria food sucks.

Oh-- by the way-- she skipped college running and moved straight to the pros.

Give her time, lads. She'll figure this out..

We've had entirely different athletic experiences. My high school training was more rigorous than college, so I was well prepared for college. With class schedules that didn't take up the entire day like high school, it was much easier to manage time in college. My pro training (the first wave of openly professionals in America) was about the same as high school -- so going from high school to pro directly wouldn't have been a problem for me at all (except for the difference in my performance level).

I agree. Mary Cain will figure it out, and hopefully she'll stay far away from NOP. It is an unhealthy situation. The last thing any young athlete needs is a coach yelling in her ear about her arms, or her footstrike, or her this, or that, and other thing. Having a coach who picks fights with other coaches at competitions is unacceptable at any level. Cain can do better. She needs to surround herself with the people who care for her, not the ones who want something from her.

And, yes, I believe, out of all runners, SOM is exactly what she needs runningwise right now. She needs to share her running with her friends, not her coach.. Not her agent..Not her sponsor. They'll all be distant memories faster than she can say "Kara Goucher." She needs to learn how to love running again. She needs to rejuvenate her body and spirit. She needs to feel the wind in her face and love the movement of her body. She needs to embrace her failures and not be intimidated by them, for they are the springboard to her next success.

She needs to smile again.

ScaryStuff wrote:

If I recall, Erin Donohue ran at 5'7" and was 143 pounds and did just fine. Ran in the Olys, etc. The weight makes a difference but not that much.

Yes, it does. It's not even close to a debatable question. It's been proven to as high a level of scientific certainty as is possible.

The math, of course, only works for comparing an athlete to herself. Same engine, different amount of cargo. So you can't point to a fast, bigger athlete to disprove the importance of weight. It's unlikely that a world class athlete, no matter how big she is, has 10 lbs of non-functional weight to lose.

Though it's worth noting that Erin Donohue (who was really not that big--about the size of a soccer midfielder), was an EXTREME outlier in the world of elite running.