Unnamed NOP pro on Mary Cain- “she’s such a wuss.”

ventolin ^4 wrote:

jecht wrote:

Probably the most accurate post here.

Someone on the original long Cain thread said she knew her and said Bronxville was a super-elite HS and tons of pressure were placed on the kids there.

She has a bit of Katniss Everdeen in her--she may be tough and a leader but she stands alone...

In Mass. (my g/f's family is from Boston) running is BIG and you are spot-on with that statement re: coaches being douches.

i always thought it was very interesting that mary wasn't coached by bronxille's girls coach - he's a legend on the hs scene and one of the best at developing young talents. i wonder if that was done off the recommendation of a private coach/consultant. so alone and isolated, mary probably linked her identity even closer to running and then once she started to underperform, everything fell apart since a core block of her being was gone. You couple that with alsal's behaviour, and she's incredibly lucky that her mental state didn't worsen further.

i don't want to stray too far from the topic at hand but, yeah, the youth running scene is a mess in eastern mass because private coaches will often be at state races, introduce themselves to the parents of a successful runner after their race, and then plant pretty thoughts in their heads that their coaching program will guarantee a college scholarship for them (i'm thinking of a certain former baa coach who does this often... ). mass really should produce more elite hs runners, as we have a very healthy running culture, but the list of promising freshman and sophomores ruined by private coaches is about a mile long.

give me a break wrote:

I must be the only one on this board who thinks this thread is absolutely disgusting.

These are the facts:

- Mary Cain said she cut herself.

- Mary Cain said she cut herself in front of a teammate and the teammate did nothing.

- Mary Cain said she told Al Sal she was cutting herself, and Al Sal did not take any kind of action.

- Mary Cain said she missed her period for 3 years due to NOP training regimen.

- Mary Cain said she suffered 5 fractures related to health issues caused by NOP training regimen.

- Mary Cain said the sports psych for the team was not a registered psych, and was just one of Alberto's friends, alluding to how this individual did not help her.

- Unnamed pro said Mary Cain was a wuss.

- People on Let's Run call Mary Cain a narcissist.

- Mary Cain tried to rejoin NOP in April 2019 (corroborated by Mary Cain herself on Twitter).

It's pretty sad that people here are crushing this girl. It seems that emotionally she didn't have a good support system for herself while in NOP so she leaned very heavily on the group to provide it, but that wasn't its intent. It explains why she wanted to go back despite the abuse. This happens in abusive relationships all the time. It would explain how she could have been abused, and yet wanted to go back. People are dismissing her claims because she wanted to go back. But this is just one plausible explanation for her behavior and why her claims shouldn't be dismissed because of wanting to rejoin NOP.

We don't know what happened at NOP with her, but to not give her the benefit of the doubt is pretty heartless. Is she a narcissist? Maybe. But we'd also need evidence to support that. Speculation is not evidence. Narcissism is a clinically diagnosed personality disorder that can only be diagnosed by professionals, not Lets Run board posters.

give me a break wrote:

I must be the only one on this board who thinks this thread is absolutely disgusting.

These are the facts:

- Mary Cain said she cut herself.

- Mary Cain said she cut herself in front of a teammate and the teammate did nothing.

- Mary Cain said she told Al Sal she was cutting herself, and Al Sal did not take any kind of action.

- Mary Cain said she missed her period for 3 years due to NOP training regimen.

- Mary Cain said she suffered 5 fractures related to health issues caused by NOP training regimen.

- Mary Cain said the sports psych for the team was not a registered psych, and was just one of Alberto's friends, alluding to how this individual did not help her.

- Unnamed pro said Mary Cain was a wuss.

- People on Let's Run call Mary Cain a narcissist.

- Mary Cain tried to rejoin NOP in April 2019 (corroborated by Mary Cain herself on Twitter).

It's pretty sad that people here are crushing this girl. It seems that emotionally she didn't have a good support system for herself while in NOP so she leaned very heavily on the group to provide it, but that wasn't its intent. It explains why she wanted to go back despite the abuse. This happens in abusive relationships all the time. It would explain how she could have been abused, and yet wanted to go back. People are dismissing her claims because she wanted to go back. But this is just one plausible explanation for her behavior and why her claims shouldn't be dismissed because of wanting to rejoin NOP.

We don't know what happened at NOP with her, but to not give her the benefit of the doubt is pretty heartless. Is she a narcissist? Maybe. But we'd also need evidence to support that. Speculation is not evidence. Narcissism is a clinically diagnosed personality disorder that can only be diagnosed by professionals, not Lets Run board posters.

conflicted wrote:

This. Thank you. Sadly, the most balanced viewpoints I've seen on this topic have been on this thread. They might be hard to find among all the extreme ones, they at least aren't completely shut down by everyone else as unsympathetic like they are elsewhere.

I agree that we can place most of the blame on Alberto and sympathize with Mary without fully exonerating her and canonizing her as a saint. Try saying that on Lauren's or Kara's IG though and you won't get far. I guess that's my point...that Lauren and Kara (Oiselle seems to be the common denominator here) don't allow us to ask fair questions about Mary's intentions and decisions. We have to fully accept her as a victim without asking questions or we're a terrible person adding to the abuse. To be fair, you also won't get that far on here if you see Mary as nothing less than a hero.

Extreme views on either side don't allow discussion that we should be having, but I perhaps unfairly feel more frustrated with the Laurens and the Karas because of how self-righteous they are.

You SAD :( wrote:

[quote]give me a break wrote:

I must be the only one on this board who thinks this thread is absolutely disgusting.

These are the facts:

- Mary Cain said she cut herself.

- Mary Cain said she cut herself in front of a teammate and the teammate did nothing.

- Mary Cain said she told Al Sal she was cutting herself, and Al Sal did not take any kind of action.

- Mary Cain said she missed her period for 3 years due to NOP training regimen.

- Mary Cain said she suffered 5 fractures related to health issues caused by NOP training regimen.

- Mary Cain said the sports psych for the team was not a registered psych, and was just one of Alberto's friends, alluding to how this individual did not help her.

- Unnamed pro said Mary Cain was a wuss.

- People on Let's Run call Mary Cain a narcissist.

- Mary Cain tried to rejoin NOP in April 2019 (corroborated by Mary Cain herself on Twitter).

It's pretty sad that people here are crushing this girl.

Primo Numero Uno wrote:

ventolin ^4 wrote:

i always thought it was very interesting that mary wasn't coached by bronxille's girls coach - he's a legend on the hs scene and one of the best at developing young talents. i wonder if that was done off the recommendation of a private coach/consultant. so alone and isolated, mary probably linked her identity even closer to running and then once she started to underperform, everything fell apart since a core block of her being was gone. You couple that with alsal's behaviour, and she's incredibly lucky that her mental state didn't worsen further.

i don't want to stray too far from the topic at hand but, yeah, the youth running scene is a mess in eastern mass because private coaches will often be at state races, introduce themselves to the parents of a successful runner after their race, and then plant pretty thoughts in their heads that their coaching program will guarantee a college scholarship for them (i'm thinking of a certain former baa coach who does this often... ). mass really should produce more elite hs runners, as we have a very healthy running culture, but the list of promising freshman and sophomores ruined by private coaches is about a mile long.

Are private coaches in high school prevalent in other places? Maybe I'm just out of the loop on high school running since I haven't followed it much in the past decade. But when I was in high school in California the only top runner I can think of with a private coach was AJ Acosta. As far as I know, all the other phenoms used their school's coaches, a couple may have gone to private schools where there was a particular coach at the school. Everyone on my college team was coached by their high school's coaches as well.

I can understand for an extreme talent like Mary if you had a real garbage high school coach who had no clue what they are doing. Although once she started running pro races even with a good high school coach the transition to a private coach could make sense. But she is a once in a decade talent and even if you're at the level of a top finisher at foot locker there's no reason your high school coach can't work, if they pass the reasonably competent level. Looking back the female phenom is California in my era was Jordan., she was coached by the Mission coach, who is in all fairness a very good coach. She experienced no career disadvantage from that route compare to AJ having Kloos coach him.