Konstanze Klosterhalfen and repeating the story of Mary Cain

rather, this isn't intended to defend the NOP...

I just want Cam Levins to talk about being diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma. He's another one of the athletes with potential who joined, saw some success, and then walked away while still quite young. I want guys like him to know that we fans think well of you talking openly about the twists and turns your career has taken; the people who recommended it for you are probably the only people who don't want you talking about it. I also think many of the young athletes hold onto too much personal shame; it was precisely the job of your coaches to be the arbiter who should have said not to take unnatural things, so don't beat yourselves up for going along with it.

I'd say the same to Alberto. This conversation is all very different if he were to simply talk about the complexities of coaching track at an Olympic level and how it became easy to abuse the gray areas. How many of the athletes are actually seeking compensation for damages from Salazar? They'd just like to see some remorse over how things went with them.

Cain was driven to an early peak with extraordinary marks at 17. She ran 4:04 at 17, Koko ran 4:19 at 17 and didn't get to 4:04 until she was 20 (early 2017 indoors). I don't want to deny any ugly details about what happened to Cain but she and NOP basically is only a spectacular version of a very common pattern of teenaged girls peaking early in middle distance races. It's also bad coaching but sometimes it seems hard to avoid. KK got very good at 20 (before NOP) and improved further with NOP. We don't know what the future will hold but she has not crashed and burned as people had been predicting already 3 years ago. Whatever happens, the situation and history is really different from Cain's, apart from the fact that KK is coached by Julian and Al Sal is banned out now anyway.

Building strength and flexibility were always key to Al Sal's program, so Hasay could squat a lot of weight for instance. But Cain already had speed and should have been trained as an 800/1500m runner with an emphasis on strength, repeatable speed, and flexibility, as well as healthy nutrition but not weight, on a slow upward trajectory in workout distance and intensity as well as mileage. You need to know your athletes and what works for them.

Kokogoat wrote:

Koko has been really improving well every year. The 3000 run this year showed what an unbelievable athlete she's become. Hopefully 2020 will have her attack some world records and that she may get close to the 5000 outdoor record if not outright grab it. Would love if she can get both the 3000 & 5000 WR

The 3000m record is practically untouchable. Even Genzebe Dibaba going full throttle with Jama Aden's coaching before he was caught didn't get near it.

Yeah, those magical 3000 times from September 13, 1993 in Beijing are something aren't they?

Still, I wouldn't be surprised if Koko ended up with PRs of 8:15 & 14:15. She would clearly be the GOAT 3000/5000 runner.

I think that the Stanford race showed that because of the unattainable Chinese records and the dropping of the event from WC/OS it had only rarely been run at the highest level. This race had good pacing, very strong competitors and Gidey pushed after the pacer dropped out, so it was about the best conditions possible, but still fairly early in the long season. I think there are a bunch of women who could run sub 8:20 at their best and Hassan in 3:52 shape could probably run 8:12. If Koko stays healthy she could become clearly the best European born woman from 3k-10k or half marathon (she already is at 3k and second at 5k).

This topic is extremely inappropriate.

Klosterhalfen will be done as an elite runner by end of 2021 or before either due to her obvious eating disorder or the fact that the NOP is gone or a combination of both. Her elite performances for now are the result of her extreme thinness thus greatly lowering estrogen in her body. She is either doing that with just restrictive eating or that plus use of other things that have been alleged in connection with the NOP. Either way, she won't be around as an elite runner for much longer.

Hounddogharrier wrote:

You have to think Mary Cain, Jordan Hasay and Klosterhalfen are the same story told thrice. Klosterhalfen is the beginning with the greatly improved results, Hasay the middle with great results at first and now chronic breakdowns and Mary Cain the end result.

Mary Cain: Experiment #1. AlSal got it all wrong. He knew boys; if they couldn't handle the heat they were only good as training aids for Rupp. Girls were a mysterious and emotional beings. Mary gets injury and he career destroyed. No worries try again.

Jordan Hasay: Experiment #2. AlSal figures out part of my mystery. Hasay is emotional but more compliant. Get her really skinny ... menstruation is an acceptable loss for victory. Push her. Push her. Push her. See when she breaks. Oops. she broke. No worries try again.

Klosterhalfen: Experiment #4. AlSal figures out more of the mystery. Some women are less emotional and more compliant. Experiment #3 is not like his wife, Cain or Hasay at all. Push her. Push her. Push her. Maybe this one won't break.

KoKo is coached by Pete Julian

I continue to be impressed that anyone thinks the phrase "...coached by Pete Julian" somehow explains that things are OK at NOP.

It does not. But it is a sufficient reason to call the claim that "KK is Salazar's next experiment" or "repeating the story of MC" manifest nonsense. The latter claim would be nonsense regardless of NOP because the pre-NOP-stories of both runners were sufficiently different. At 17 MC was in a different class with 4:04 and youngest ever runner in a WC final whereas KK couldn't beat the Africans and was 4th in the Youth Olympics with ~4:20, good, but not that extraordinary.

Koko was exactly as skinny as she is now her entire career. Even when still coached by a german local coach. None of this was AS work. Also she has NEVER had a stress fracture in her life. In fact she has been literally almost injury free except for one case of runners knee in her entire career.

I think its time to realize that not every person and runner is the same. A weight which is perfectly fine for Koko would wreak havoc on another runner. let runners lean up naturally during high mileage training to where their body wants to be. And then maybe drop a couple more pounds at peak season for a short amount of time. If you push your body below what its able to handle it will break.

Women need to maintain their essential fat % of ~14% to be healthy. You can push lower for short amounts of time but its not sustainable. So instead of the damn weight look at body fat % measurements. I am at 14% myself and but my BMI is close to 20% because I have a lot of muscle. So pushing a woman below the 14% permanently will result in hormone disruption and long term damage.

*close to 20

Dibaba ran 8:15 indoors, I think, while she's run around 14:14 outdoors.

AnotherRunningMom wrote:

Cjnckobgii wrote:

KoKo was pretty skinny before the NOP. She may be less injured now. What is it that keeps them from getting injured? Hassan and KoKo are just so thing but so strong and never hurt! I wonder what it could be? Anybody know?

She gets her period?

Missing your period the biggest reg flag in women's sports physiology, and I can't believe how many idiots on these boards still don't get that. Add to that, as most athletes go through puberty later, it can take well into their early twenties for their bodies to stabilize.

What I don’t get is 3 years? If she missed 2 in a row and wasn’t pregnant.... that was the time to call it a season and go home

runningchick wrote:

Koko was exactly as skinny as she is now her entire career. Even when still coached by a german local coach. None of this was AS work. Also she has NEVER had a stress fracture in her life. In fact she has been literally almost injury free except for one case of runners knee in her entire career.

Solid point, but the thing is that yes there is a correlation between being underweight and stress fractures. There is also one between too low nutritional intake. BUT, and that's what many people are forgetting - there is an even stronger correlation between training stimulus and stress fractures. The correlation is very strong between high mileage and stress fractures (the more you run, the more likely you are to get one) and between intensity and stress fractures.

People need to understand how motivated and ambitious Cain and Salazar were. They were pushing the absolute limits in terms of training stimulus, the workouts and post-race workouts were incredibly hard. They didn't just train to become a solid HS girl/17-year old, their training was designed to maximize performance, break records and win medals. Everyone believes that Cain's low weight/Salazar's weight shaming is responsible for her injuries and the downfall of the "Americas best HS runner". Why it might not be true?

1) There haven't been many images shown of her being very underweight. She looks healthy in many pictures, even a bit chubby in some for an elite distance runner (nothing wrong with it, look at Purrier etc, I'm just comparing her to the average female elite runner).

2) There IS a strong correlation between training stimulus, hard workouts, overtraining and injuries/stress fractures. Maybe, but just maybe she, Salazar and her parents PUSHED her too hard during her time at NOP and wanted "too much, too soon"? She was in a young, 16-year old girl body that was just transforming and experiencing growth. She was performing at a level that can't be any higher for that age, as shown in several age-graded Western world records.

I think the main problem here is trying to become competitive on a world's level in a sport that rewards long-term investment and smart development and training. The problem is not bringing her up safely and slowly but matching her with elite runners that ran similar times (Moser, Hasay) and letting her do the same training. But she was younger, less experienced, and her body wasn't ready for it.

The blaming of Salazar and weight seems just like she is trying to find an excuse for her performances in the last 5 years, the first 2 with NOP, but then also 3 years on her own/with a different coach in NYC that also weren't successful. I think there is more to it, and it's more of a problem of TOO hard training than slowly bringing her up to an elite level, also her goal of "break records & win world medals" was just stupid, the goal should have been to "safely progress and improve over time", and then let records and medals NATURALLY come to her when she AND her body are ready for it.

I'm in agreement with you, but I do think it is appropriate to blame Salazar in the Cain case. It just seems like coaching basics to understand where your runners are at the start and how hard its advisable to push. Especially when dealing with younger runners. The best coaches should also understand ways to sustain success. Also, its not as if there haven't been 10+ years of warnings about the injury dangers of having young women train to excessively low body weights.

I'm really hoping that Klosterhalfen is just working off an extraordinarily slight frame and not sacrificing too much, because she did have a great year, and it would be nice if that was one of many to come.