Anyone see this race? Mary Cain runs 2:08 800m in Oregon

Who cares, Hasay is a babe!

Mary Cain's talent hasn't 'gone away'. It is still there - she's probably just dealing with body changes, and has maybe gone on the pill. She just needs to persevere a few years to iron out the body changes, and she'll be back on top. This is so common with women in her age group.

However, maybe she'll give up and move on to other things in the meantime. She is very bright, and perhaps will take the decision that it 'isn't worth it', and go ahead and finish her studies and prepare for a professional career. I wouldn't blame her, as it is a hard road ahead to work through these changes. Also, the Africans are becoming so much more dominant in the women's races, it may be the best thing all around (for her future) to become a 'part-time' runner over the coming years.

tj wrote:

Mary Cain's talent hasn't 'gone away'. It is still there - she's probably just dealing with body changes, and has maybe gone on the pill. She just needs to persevere a few years to iron out the body changes, and she'll be back on top. This is so common with women in her age group.

However, maybe she'll give up and move on to other things in the meantime. She is very bright, and perhaps will take the decision that it 'isn't worth it', and go ahead and finish her studies and prepare for a professional career. I wouldn't blame her, as it is a hard road ahead to work through these changes. Also, the Africans are becoming so much more dominant in the women's races, it may be the best thing all around (for her future) to become a 'part-time' runner over the coming years.

The particular body change she is undergoing is vanishing talent.

More Rons wrote:

Any of you morons notice that Katie Rainsberger a highshooler ran 4:14 for 2nd, and ahead of many pros in that same 1500?

Why why are you all so effing stupid?

Don't get them started... Hasay and Cain is enough. Just as well that they keep fretting about those two.

Here's post race interview from Alberto that explains why both Hasay and Cain entered the race. http://www.oregonlive.com/trackandfield/index.ssf/2016/05/friday_morning_news_notes_link_39.html#incart_river_index

Sorry it was pre-race, not post-race interview.

yeah right. are you serious?she's average at best. pappas is even cuter than her

What say you? wrote:

Who cares, Hasay is a babe!

She's still young, so who knows what the future will bring.

However, this makes her choice to go pro and cash in even smarter in retrospect. You never know when a career might be ended by injury or whatever is going on with her.

From a coaching standpoint, this is a debacle, especially compared with how successfully Salazar brought Rupp along with steady incremental progress. Maybe it shows how little effect coaching actually has over athletic development compared to natural talent.

Lenny Leonard wrote:

TrackCoach wrote:

2:11 is not great, but it's ok for a 10k type who perhaps ventured down from altitude to get in what amounts to a workout and support a local meet.

It's far from great. It would be like a male 10k runner coming down from altitude and running a 2:00 800m.

I don't think a 2:00 800m is all that bad for a 10K runner coming down from altitude especially if that runner is an LD type.

TrackCoach wrote:I don't think a 2:00 800m is all that bad for a 10K runner coming down from altitude especially if that runner is an LD type.

Except Mary Cain is a 800/1500 runner. Given her earlier times, something is clearly wrong.

jamin wrote:

One gets the idea that Cain could've got to 1:56 if after running 1:59 she did nothing but eat steak and do hills and speedwork, instead of joining the Salazar cult and developing robotic form and doing post-race medicine ball catches on the underwater treadmill.

About 50% of female phenoms don't pan out, I don't think the reason for that is anybody's fault. Under AlSal, Cain had enormous success, a national senior title, a world junior title and lots of fast high school and junior records. I know for a fact that AlSal was very careful with Cain's training, there was a lot more variety in her training, but she never did the same level of training as her training partners.

TrackCoach wrote:About 50% of female phenoms don't pan out, I don't think the reason for that is anybody's fault. Under AlSal, Cain had enormous success, a national senior title, a world junior title and lots of fast high school and junior records. I know for a fact that AlSal was very careful with Cain's training, there was a lot more variety in her training, but she never did the same level of training as her training partners.

I don't think using the horse harness and fiddling with her form was being very careful.

Perhaps Cain was getting some of the dreaded side effects and decided she didn't want to continue on with the full AlSal program. Without the full program she is running poorly. Multiple times Alan Webb tried the same thing in his career as he drifted from coach to coach and bombed horribly during those stretches and was forced to go back on a full program and ran great again. I doubt Cain will try going back and forth like Webb and instead will quietly disappear, a process that we may already be seeing now.

PS if you remember during her salad days early on with AlSal, don't you all remember how ridiculously easy it all was for her, how everything went so perfectly. Didn't you ever ask yourself "does this make sense, is it all really this easy?".

Also, they body changes you refer to his girls between freshman and soph year in high school, not as an adult women like Cain.

Riiiiight, because we've never seen this happen to any other women at that age ever....

easygoesit wrote:

PS if you remember during her salad days early on with AlSal, don't you all remember how ridiculously easy it all was for her, how everything went so perfectly. Didn't you ever ask yourself "does this make sense, is it all really this easy?".

Also, they body changes you refer to his girls between freshman and soph year in high school, not as an adult women like Cain.

The body and social issues which women, or perhaps anyone moving on from high school are pretty pronounced which is why we see what appears to be a fair amount of failure during this period. Stating that changes only occur at a younger age is completely naive.