The Questions about weight - in light of the Mary Cain allegations - is there more to it?

I don't know if this has been brought up yet, but we have to remember Mary Cain was just 17 when she joined NOP. Her body was still going through changes associated with puberty.

Opinions please wrote:

I’d really be interested in what people think - a number of times in the latest Let’s Run podcast it was mentioned that, if you’re training at a high level, high mileage , the weight really will just “drop off”. If this isn’t the case - if you’re running high mileage and carry extra weight - does it suggest an eating disorder? Binge eating? Is there more to the weight issue if high mileage athletes are “over weight”?

I don't know. But I'll pose a related question.

Does anyone see the irony that even Galen Rupp himself ignored Salazar's advice and went to college instead of turning pro right out of high school? Basically Rupp wanted a more normal life with his peers and experience college.

Moving across the country, living with strangers, and working as an elite professional athlete straight of high school is inherently very stressful if not downright depressing. I know Cain was enrolled at Porland University but its not the same.

No doubt Nike and Salazar could have done some things to make Cain's life better. But ultimately Cain and her parents should look themselves in the mirror and admit they bit off more than they could chew. They should have more gradually eased her into adult life. They have no one to blame but themselves.

In the video, Mary described not having her period (athletic amenorrhoea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amenorrhea

) for 3 years.

This is known to be related to "low energy availability", i.e. relatively low calorie intake vs. energy expended in workouts.

It can lead to weaker bones and osteoporosis over time.

It seems like it would be wise to go on an extended cycle birth control pill to make sure her estrogen did not get too low.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_cycle_combined_hormonal_contraceptive

Athletic amenorrhoea has been known in female runners for decades, and I believe most coaches these days ask their athletes if they are having regular periods. So I would be expect Alberto and Mary's parents were aware of this.

Overall, the video gives me the impression that Mary's perception was that Alberto focused mostly on her weight, instead of her overall health and workouts. This seems to be a subjective perception.

It is normal for a coach to monitor weight, along with performance in workouts.

The problem of elite female high school runners being unable to stay elite at college age has also been known for decades.

We used to call it the "Footlocker Curse" - no female Footlocker XC champion had ever won an NCAA outdoor title until just a few years ago.

It is a difficult problem, and it seems unfair to blame Alberto and his alleged primary focus on weight for her no longer being "the fastest girl in America."

She was a professional world class athlete. Age has little to do with it. How hard do you think 13 year old gymnasts and ice skaters train in the USA, Russia, ... ? I have seen video's of young ladies trying to make a national volleyball team do repeated dives onto a hardwood floor with bloody malformed hands and knees. Her parents consent to join NOP says it all. If they didn't realize how hard the training would be and the physiology required (weight is part of this) , then they should have been. They were her guardians. How could they see she was cutting and ignore it? NOP's job was to train her to be a world class runner. Maybe once NOP learned she was cutting they probably had to release her.

What do we really know? Time will tell now that she went public and we could learn why someone like Hasay makes it and others don't. I suspect college sports are a kindergarten class compared to world class level.

That’s not true imo. If you run 100 mile weeks but are in a calorie surplus you will gain weight. I once gained about 3 lbs over two months while averaging 100 mpw. I ate when I was hungry— clean, but a ton of food. I’ve lost weight at 50 mpw by portion control. The weight will only come off if you limit your calorie consumption. IE, you stop before you are full.

TooMuchisTooMuch. wrote:

For most everybody eating disorder-ish tendencies will creep in at a certain point. It's not exactly fixed because quality of nutrition and sleep etc have some impacts too. Regardless, that point for westerners is generally at too high of a weight for us to be the best distance runners. That's why Alberto reaches out to an endocrinologist to get help.

Didn’t he just use the endicrinologist for prescribing thyroid hormones to slim down?. Isn't that how everybody in NOP got so thin?

The Ectoplasm of Tom Joad wrote:

Ecto Facto wrote:

Except distance running only allows for slight variations of one body type.

Tell that to Chris Solinsky!

chris solinsky is skinny. 6'1 16x is skinny

I can see the point of having a BMI between 17 and 18.3 if you want to be a top marathon runner, since Amy Cragg has a 17.0 (5'4", 99 lbs), Shalane has a BMI of 17.6 (5'4", 116 lbs), and Desi has an 18.3 (5'1", 97 lbs).

However, middle distance runners have a higher BMI of between 19.1 and 19.9, such as Jennifer Simpson with a 19.8 (5'5", 115 lbs), Shannon Rowbury with a BMI of 19.1 (5'5", 115 lbs) and Amy Yoder Begley have a BMI of 19.9 (5'4", 116 lbs)

Al Sal wanted Mary Cain to weigh 114 lbs, even though she's 5'7" tall. That would have given her a BMI of 17.9, which is appropriate for a marathon runner, but too light for a middle distance runner. If Mary had a BMI of 19.1 to 19.9 like other middle distance runners, she'd weigh 122 lbs to 127 lbs. Thus, Al Sal's goal of wanting her to be 114 lbs is 8 lbs to 13 lbs is too light.

Al Sal was unreasonable in trying to have her reach a less than optimal weight for the distances she was running. Mary Cain is correct in stating that "Salazar created an “arbitrary weight” of 114 lbs."

Meant to say : "Shalane has a BMI of 17.6 (5'5", 106 lbs)"

Also, meant to day: "Jennifer Simpson with a 19.8 (5'5", 119 lbs)" (I sure wish there was an edit button!)

Here is a relevant video about women in sports and nutrition.

the premise is false. Not enough weight can just "drop off" to reach a level that will produce world-elite performances. Most western elites have big skeletons, and you can't shrink your frame.

Of course, you CAN reduce your western elite to just the skeleton, IF you have a magic science that can keep them running full steam instead of collapsing with metabolic disorders. That's clearly what NOP focused on to make their westerners competitive with people with lighter skeletons from hungrier countries. But when that same science was applied to the lighter-skeleton people, it worked for them too, so the westerners never caught up.

My story, for what it's worth:

I am female, 5'6".Completely ignorant of any kind of science involving how extra weight affects running performance, I was running 65mph (high for me) and long, intense workouts a few years ago. However, I weighed more than I ever had in my life--(probably up to 138 pounds), because I rationalized that I needed the extra calories to fuel the training and just didn't really think about it. It was pretty healthy and clean food too, just a lot of it.

It wasn't until I was struggling to reach times that I knew should be completely attainable for me and my fitness level, that my (male) coach raised the issue of my weight. It honestly surprised me--I had never even considered this--and it was something of a relief. I had been demoralized and mystified by my suffering performances and considering the weight factor was an a-ha! moment.

My coach wrote me a plan to lose weight--he was extremely objective and scientific about it, NOTHING like the accounts from Salazar--and in the course of the next month or so, I counted calories, got down to about 123 lbs and have stayed in that arena since (it fluctuates of course, due to the time of the month, but hovers around there). I now feel no need to count calories--those weeks I did gave me a good idea of what counts as a full meal and a full stomach, something I never really had before)--and I still eat really healthy. Now I'm running way lower mileage and less intense workouts, with less focus (my work schedule right now doesn't really allow for it--but I'd like to get back into heavy training at some point), but can still pop a random 5k or mile time close to than what I was running a few years ago, on a heavier body, with heavier and way more focused training.

My point I guess, is that 1) weight DOES have a lot to do with performance 2) it should be the factor that's considered AFTER other factors like training, sleep, etc., have been ruled out 3) Weight loss for performance can be an easy, impersonal, objective affair, not one loaded with personal insult and tied up in body image and 4) contrary to the ones trying to turn this into a "Me Too" thing--it is NOT a male coach vs. female athlete thing. It's pointless and self-defeating to try and turn it into a sexism story. It's coaches investing too much of the emotional and personal into what should be objective, scientific and problem-solving.

From my own experience, this isn’t the case, but my mileage was never close to elite.

I’m a female, 5’8”. When not marathon training, I run 30 miles a week and my weight hovers around 128-130. When training for marathons, mileage averages 40-45 mpw peaking at 55. During the 4 months of that, I gain 5 lbs and my weight is around 135. I am just crazy hungry when I when I’m running 50 mile weeks and I need the energy to train.

Even at my lowest weight, 124, I never lost my period or had any issues.

Lets also remember that Amy Begley discovered celiac gluten allergy meaning her gut was compromised and what she was eating wasn’t being digested so this also could lead to binge eating disorders. Also some people strive on carbs while others strive on fat. Some people get inflammation and asthma on dairy.

Opinions please wrote:

I’d really be interested in what people think - a number of times in the latest Let’s Run podcast it was mentioned that, if you’re training at a high level, high mileage , the weight really will just “drop off”. If this isn’t the case - if you’re running high mileage and carry extra weight - does it suggest an eating disorder? Binge eating? Is there more to the weight issue if high mileage athletes are “over weight”?

If you're male it probably means you lack testosterone and have a low metabolism, etc. If you're female it probably means you're very fertile.

That's interesting, I've never met anyone who didn't know intuitively weight matters in distance running. Ever since I started running competitively in high school, even at a not very good high school it was made very clear weight matters (from coaches, teachers, teammates, and its kind of obvious you think about physics). I remember my senior year I was at an indoor track meet, and my coach's gf who just finished running for college came up to talk to me, as I planned to run after high school. And she bluntly gave me her advice, "don't get fat"... I'm sure she said other things, but that's all I remember. It certainly fed my anxiety about weight, especially since I have a larger frame for distance running.

I have learned my ideal racing weight is about 130 at 5'5", I have dieted down to 118, and I was injured, and every rib was visible, and generally didn't look very healthy nor did I feel healthy, I didn't run my fastest times either...but the longest race I've done is 10k. I think if I went up to marathon, perhaps 125 would work, if I could manage the mileage without injuries. At 130 I've managed 60+ mpw without injuries for months on end, and usually will maintain 30-40. When I was down at 118, I was injured at just 40 mpw, my 5k is 1 min faster at 130 than 118. But it took me a long time to realize that I trying to fit a square peg into a round hole is pointless (trying to make a large frame weigh what a person with a small frame weighs, at the same height).

youdumbfaggot wrote:

The Ectoplasm of Tom Joad wrote:

Tell that to Chris Solinsky!

chris solinsky is skinny. 6'1 16x is skinny

Yeah but it isn't really skinny. That is what normal healthy people weigh. 6'1/150 is skinny. 6'3/137 is skelator level:)

According USTAF, Cain was 5'7/111lbs when she ran 4:04. Does that change your impression of what her ideal weight is? Obviously have no way of knowing if that page is right or not. For a given individual 5-10lb differences because of muscle mass, bone density, frame size,... is to be expected. And I place absolutely zero faith in any of the published weight numbers. It isn't like Simpson and the rest are stepping on the scale before the race. The filled out a form one day and that number has propagated through time. And what does 115 mean? Is that racing weight before the WC? Weight in the fall after taking 2 weeks off? Weight in the morning? Weight before starting training in the afternoon? And so on.

114 is definitely on the light end. But it isn't some absurd number (i.e. he isn't asking her to weight 105lbs). We would need a lot more info to know if it was 5lbs to light or about right.