Mary Cain and over-training

If the workouts sound like a crazy amount of work, they probably are. Building a tolerance for anything takes time.

before she went to Oregon to be coached directly by Salazar, he would say that you would never believe how fast she would race from looking at her workouts, which indicates that she was not killing herself in workouts until she went out there (not to say this was his fault but maybe she was trying to keep up with others or to impress him), and she may have returned to what she was doing for John Henwood before, not leaving it out on the track in practice.

Ha. No wonder she refused the LRC interview. If this is the kind of honest answer she will give to a "friendly" reporter just imagine the type of stuff she'd let out to someone asking the "hard" questions. Seriously, she just said AlSal is a bad coach."So, Mary, did you notice anything odd at NOP?""Odd?! OMG! That's an understatement. NOP is only missing one letter. E! Hahahahahaha!"

When I read the article my first thought was 'Why doesn't Salazer know better than to put a young lady through that much training? Why didn't he pick up on the signals and back off?"

joho wrote:

When I read the article my first thought was 'Why doesn't Salazer know better than to put a young lady through that much training? Why didn't he pick up on the signals and back off?"

Well he did back off didn't he? She didn't race much at all this year.

Kruppe wrote:

I found this bit interesting from Mary Cain's interview posted on the front-page:

"So I’d be doing crazy tempos, crazy mileage, crazy cross training, and I would get into running and by the time I’m doing the actual sport that I do, I felt really awful, really crappy. You could see it in my results.”

I suppose it sheds light on what many suspected, she was overtrained.

Are overtraining symptoms always obvious (constant fatigue, no "pop" etc?) As a coach what do you look for to catch it before it is too late? Is one or two flat races after a solid training block indicative of over-training? Is over-training harder to spot among the elites, simply because they run the ragged edge during the season?

I too enjoyed the line about overtraining and it gave me some hope for Cain.

In running, you can't force things. You need to take the next logical step in training, train properly and see the results. You can't think, "I ran these reps in 61 last year and ran 4:04, this year I want to run 3:56 so I must do them in 59." As the problem is it's possible to force it out in practice. If you race your practice (which a 18-year-old is very capable of doing), then you likely won't have it for the race. Practice is practice and a race is a race.

I'm not saying you can't occasionally go very hard in practice but you simply can't force things.

One thing that is hard about these things is sometimes I had can take a season for your races to catch up to your workouts. Sometimes a kid I'd be coaching would have a breakout xc season. Then in track his workouts were better than the year before but what I wasn't sure of was, "Are these workouts just catching up to where he was in xc or is he at another level above that?"

Similarly sometimes it takes a while for training to kick in. So maybe Cain needs more mileage, etc. But it was just a little too much for 2015 but will pay off in 2016. I always said, "Mileage isn't for this season. It's for the next one. It might actually hurt you for the current season." Using that line of logic, I always encouraged for my seniors to run a little less as a) they couldn't afford to get hurt and b) there is no tmw.

The easiest way to spot it is low ferritin levels, lack of sleep. But it's not easy to spot unless it's a total disaster.

As for spotting it, I think in general coaching an elite is not much different than coaching anyone else. They just are a ton faster.

Oodk wrote:

joho wrote:

When I read the article my first thought was 'Why doesn't Salazer know better than to put a young lady through that much training? Why didn't he pick up on the signals and back off?"

Well he did back off didn't he? She didn't race much at all this year.

Yes, he backed off the racing so she could train even harder.

redux wrote:

Ha. No wonder she refused the LRC interview. If this is the kind of honest answer she will give to a "friendly" reporter just imagine the type of stuff she'd let out to someone asking the "hard" questions. Seriously, she just said AlSal is a bad coach.

She never said Salazar is a bad coach. Maybe she over did it last year. It might help her for this year. Maybe she was homesick. You live and learn.

Just because you say you overtrained doesn't mean you think you over did it.

If she thought Salazar was a bad a coach, she wouldn't be coached by him.

She said that she never felt this fit in October before. So she bogged from the training load earlier, and her body just caught up to the work.

fred wrote:

She said that she never felt this fit in October before. So she bogged from the training load earlier, and her body just caught up to the work.

Or she took a break, got out of shape and started over.

She talked about the demands of college and life in Oregon. That "stress" could have been a significant factor in her diminished well-being.

She's still on the phone with Salazar daily, so she doesn't fault him.

Kruppe wrote:

I found this bit interesting from Mary Cain's interview posted on the front-page:

"So I’d be doing crazy tempos, crazy mileage, crazy cross training, and I would get into running and by the time I’m doing the actual sport that I do, I felt really awful, really crappy. You could see it in my results.”

I suppose it sheds light on what many suspected, she was overtrained.

Are overtraining symptoms always obvious (constant fatigue, no "pop" etc?) As a coach what do you look for to catch it before it is too late? Is one or two flat races after a solid training block indicative of over-training? Is over-training harder to spot among the elites, simply because they run the ragged edge during the season?

Two possible signs of overtraining is when an athlete dreads practice and is struggling early in races. Not that I disagree with Cain's decision, it is possible she could have gotten better by continuing to do what she was doing and allowing her body to mature and adapt. In Kenya, promising teens are thrown in with elite athletes where and they simply struggle for a year and then become great; there is no system of easing you in.

In AlSal's defrense, although I think Cain would progressed if she had stayed with her H.S. coach and continued doing what she was doing, but the progression would not have been nearly as great without the NOP pro level coaching and training partners. Things are looking good for Cain right now, her XC results are better than what most people realize in light of the fact that she is a true 800/mile type. However, the path she is taking right now will likely get her back to running somewhere near her previous results, but I can't possibly she how it is going to make her better. Perhaps for Cain, it was too much too soon, she went from barely training like a H.S. all-American to a world class athlete in the span of 18 months. But, if she has any thoughts of making the 2016 national team, with in a few months she is going need to be doing the NOP type training again.

I'm not buying it. If she was doing the "crazy" workouts claimed then why was she hanging out of her uniform. If she crossed trained and lifted why didn't she have a hint of a bicep. The rest of the team looks like they overtrain Cain does not. People believe anything elites say.

TrackCoach wrote:

In AlSal's defrense, although I think Cain would progressed if she had stayed with her H.S. coach and continued doing what she was doing, but the progression would not have been nearly as great without the NOP pro level coaching and training partners.

She as not progressed greatly since leaving her highschool training. You could even argue that she really hasn't improved much at all since leaving highschool. In fact, she has regressed.

She was doing so much that she "needed" the extra food to prop herself up.

I agree that Salazar was aiming at 3:55 type results, which require the heavier training. Many of us would think that Rupp/Farah/ are training too hard when we hear the anecdotal evidence, but on the other hand they were 1 and 2 at the Olympics .

another canuck wrote:

.... but on the other hand they were 1 and 2 at the Olympics .

No, they were 1 and 7 at the Olympics. Not being specific, same as you.

another canuck wrote:

I agree that Salazar was aiming at 3:55 type results, which require the heavier training. Many of us would think that Rupp/Farah/ are training too hard when we hear the anecdotal evidence, but on the other hand they were 1 and 2 at the Olympics .

It's my belief that you can get away with "over" training when you have 10-15 years of solid base behind you. Cain doesn't have that.....yet.

another canuck wrote:

I agree that Salazar was aiming at 3:55 type results, which require the heavier training. Many of us would think that Rupp/Farah/ are training too hard when we hear the anecdotal evidence, but on the other hand they were 1 and 2 at the Olympics .

Faster times do not require heavier training. Whatever got you to 4:30 will get you to 4:20. This is the mistake that people make that gets them into overtraining.