Did Al Sal ruin Mary Cain?

She probably had better things to do with her life than struggle with competitive running. That life can't possibly be right for everyone who has talent.

If you throw eggs at wall, a few around bound to crack.

There was a pretty good interview on the Citius magazine site a couple months ago. Going to Portland under those circumstances just didn't fit. She was trying to be a normal student by day, studying chemistry, and then being NOPer on the afternoons/weekends. All at 18-19 years old. Altitude tent in her dorm room and the intense workouts, while fighting off injury and getting re-injured while trying to get back too soo. In other words, overwhelming. Not sure if she'll make it back or not, but seems to have a good attitude about it now.

We know Salazar moved Mary Cain up in distance even though he had a 16/17 year old 1:59.xx 800m runner. I looked at other US teenage 800m runners on IAAF her age. I assume Salazar moved up Cain to 1500m to 5000m attempting to avoid Ajee Wilson. A young Ajee Wilson in 2013 was a 1:58.xx 800m runner, same year Cain was a 1:59.xx 800m runner. As a US teenager, Cain had 1500m to 5000m to herself. Compared to the world, 800m was Cain's best event. Salazar should have kept Cain as an 800m specialist through her teenage years. Salazar never had a personal feel for 800m. Salazar did not know what was too much for Cain regarding training &/or racing.

Everydog wrote:

She probably had better things to do with her life than struggle with competitive running. That life can't possibly be right for everyone who has talent.

No, this is entirely Salazar's fault. She had more motivation than anyone, was super strong mentally and 100% dedicated to the sport. Remember what Salazar promised her when they met in person:

"The first time we sat down he said, 'This is a 10-year program. I don't want you peaking at age 16,'

He achieved exactly the thing he promised her not to do with her. He took over in training Cain in 2012, and upped her intensity by a lot. He would let her train with Moser who was a much more accomplished runner (in her 30's with lots of lifetime mileage and 5xUS 1500m champion) on workouts like 10x200 in 27.1s avg (200m jog) AT 5000 FT ALTITUDE!

What happened? Cain improved drastically in the short term. She PR'ed in every distance in 2013, first 4:04 in 1500m, then 1:59 in 800m, then 15:45 in 5000m. After the 15:45, which was a huge PR for the 17-year old Cain, he would keep her on the track and let her do 2x400 at best avg pace in 59 and 57, which was around 600m all-out effort for her.

What happened after were injuries. Her first was developed in Feb 2014, calf injury which prevented her from attending IAAF Indoor World's 2014. After that, she was injured every year, including stress fractures in her shins. Each injury is a major setback, at that point many runners would have given up, especially when she was racing in 2:09 and 4:25 instead of 1:59 and 4:04 and starting to get beat by runners she used to destroy all time.

The only thing a coach would have needed to do was to keep her healthy. Allow her to blossom naturally without injuries and let her talent shine. But Salazar did the only thing wrong he could have done wrong - he let her train too hard, raced her too often (even shortly after her injuries healed!), put her in the wrong races and ruined her career. Good examples of coaches that hold their athletes back are the HS coaches of Grant Fisher, Drew Hunter, and Tuohy. The first two are talented but definitely not as much as Cain was, but proper development and coaching with holding them back allowed them to shine and now have promising pro careers.

You obviously have an ax to grind as you have talked about this in multiple threads yet you only bring up the same 1 workout each time. I think alberto has proven that he can bring a HS stud up for the long term : Rupp. Cain just wasn’t ready for full time professional running per her interview. Not to mention her body changed. Quit blaming Al for everything as you don’t have insight to her trainingz

Shutupalready wrote:

You obviously have an ax to grind as you have talked about this in multiple threads yet you only bring up the same 1 workout each time. I think alberto has proven that he can bring a HS stud up for the long term : Rupp. Cain just wasn’t ready for full time professional running per her interview. Not to mention her body changed. Quit blaming Al for everything as you don’t have insight to her trainingz

Every workout is INSANE. Especially the combination between all-out races and then starting a workout that's even harder than the race afterwards. Not happy with the 10x200 in 27.1 at altitude and 2x400 in 59 and 57 after her lifetime 5k PR? Fine, I give you more.

This gotta be the most ridiculous one I've seen. After a 4:24 indoor mile (another lifetime PR for Mary Cain) he went with her and Hasay (5 years older) straight to the track. Cain said directly after the mile how tired she was.

Then he told her to do a 3-mile tempo (Hasay 4 miles) at 5:30 pace - Cain said "I've never done that before" but he still let her do it. It was negative split around 5:35/5:40/5:45. Then Cain was about to throw up where Salazar said: "If you feel like you gonna throw up go ahead and let it happen. You will feel better afterwards, I'm serious get that stuff out". Then they had to put on spikes and do 600-400-300-200, all at extremely fast paces (1:46-62-43-27) all with standing start!!

1 month later Cain was injured and had to miss IAAF World indoor and the injury cycle started and repeated itself. She was never the same again anymore, and those were her last PRs.

Even if you are right and his training wasn't responsible for her injuries and it would have happened with any coach/program, the mental burnout from doing such a workout after a big PR race must be insane. Instead of going to eat a nice meal with friends and celebrate the big mile PR, the 17-year old girl had to go on the track and kill herself. These post-race workouts might work for Rupp and Farah, who need it to get to the absolute next level, but for 17-year old girls who like you said have changing body? I might be even more cautious then with the training.

I think all these workouts and super-elite stuff wasn't necessary for her when she was 16/17. "Don't go somewhere in training until you have you go there."

Also a quote from Cain 2015:

"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.”

Shutupalready wrote:

You obviously have an ax to grind as you have talked about this in multiple threads yet you only bring up the same 1 workout each time. I think alberto has proven that he can bring a HS stud up for the long term : Rupp. Cain just wasn’t ready for full time professional running per her interview. Not to mention her body changed. Quit blaming Al for everything as you don’t have insight to her trainingz

I am not the poster you attacked but who are you?

Who in their right mind defends what Salazar did to Mary Cain?

Who in their right mind would say that Salazar was qualified to train an elite 800m runner, teenager or 26 year old?

Salazar, by his own words, a pathetic 57 400m man, never had any business training Cain. Salazar's 400m & 800m personal bests would not even put him in top 25% for let'srun male posters.

What he did? You act like he abused her. Have you ever heard Mary ever say a bad word about him? Unless you know something you are just blaming Alberto because Mary never panned out. Do you know something we don’t know?

This.

I wouldn’t list Tuohy in that group. She’s about the same spot as Cain was we’ll unfortunately find out in the next few years.

As for Cain I think it’s a combo of already working too hard at a young age and then amping that up even more by going pro and with AlSal.

Very few of these girl non 800 runners does going pro work well for. Girls that work super hard at young age either have massive burn out or atleast a plateau coming. If Cain had gone to college and maybe just plateau’d she would have still been a super strong NCAA runner and had all the positives from that. By going pro you put yourself in the mental situation where if you aren’t PRing or placing well in every race then you are failing. That’s tough.

probably could have brought her along slower but the truth is she doesnt really have a world beater frame or form. she could have progressed slower and been a solid pro runner who made a few teams, but that is not really what al sal is about. he is about finding talent to get medals... she was not going to get any medals unless she could handle his training.

Hayduke wrote:

probably could have brought her along slower but the truth is she doesnt really have a world beater frame or form. she could have progressed slower and been a solid pro runner who made a few teams, but that is not really what al sal is about. he is about finding talent to get medals... she was not going to get any medals unless she could handle his training.

Well then he shouldn’t have coached her

why move up? wrote:

We know Salazar moved Mary Cain up in distance even though he had a 16/17 year old 1:59.xx 800m runner.

I assume Salazar moved up Cain to 1500m to 5000m attempting to avoid Ajee Wilson. A young Ajee Wilson in 2013 was a 1:58.xx 800m runner, same year Cain was a 1:59.xx 800m runner.

This conspiracy theory doesn't seem too far-fetched. I wonder if Salazar did try to push her up in distance to avoid Ajee Wilson.

Cain should have remained an 800/1500 specialist. It's where she thrived.

It's called pushing it to the limits:

too much too soon,and she probably overdid it.seems like she was pushed too hard,and couldnt develop naturally.

What he did? You act like he abused her. Have you ever heard Mary ever say a bad word about him? Unless you know something you are just blaming Alberto because Mary never panned out. Do you know something we don’t know?[/quote]

Well isn't she still under contract with Nike. She probably can't say what she really feels.... But most of these teen phenom burnout stories have parents involved that were making decisions although unfortunately they don't have a great guidebook for success to follow.

I really miss her. There was a point when she was the most exciting moment of any meet, the best interview. Her entire personality and demeanor are just incredible. Truly a unique athlete.

She would exceed expectations without winning most races yet still generate such excitement. We never got to see her reach the next level where she *was* expected to win.

There has been no one to fill those shoes.

why move up? wrote:

We know Salazar moved Mary Cain up in distance even though he had a 16/17 year old 1:59.xx 800m runner. I looked at other US teenage 800m runners on IAAF her age. I assume Salazar moved up Cain to 1500m to 5000m attempting to avoid Ajee Wilson. A young Ajee Wilson in 2013 was a 1:58.xx 800m runner, same year Cain was a 1:59.xx 800m runner. As a US teenager, Cain had 1500m to 5000m to herself. Compared to the world, 800m was Cain's best event. Salazar should have kept Cain as an 800m specialist through her teenage years. Salazar never had a personal feel for 800m. Salazar did not know what was too much for Cain regarding training &/or racing.

If he trained her as a 800m person and she burned out, the board would be filled with threads about how they should have focused more on aerobic conditioning and the like instead of speed:). I assume Salazer was guessing what her best medal event would be in 2016-2024 not in 2014 and was training towards that.

It is really hard to say what ruins an athlete. It probably always comes down to a combo of factors some of which are under the athletes control and others aren't. The list of teen phenoms on both the male and female side that don't live up to the hype is long.