Mary Cain sighting. Cain returns to action for 1st time since May. Finishes 33rd at Club Nats - 1 minute behind Tuohy

Not her distance, so I think this shows a return to general fitness and health. Finally out of her injury cycle? I would love to see her back with some fast track times. Go Mary!

donairs wrote:

Not her distance, so I think this shows a return to general fitness and health. Finally out of her injury cycle? I would love to see her back with some fast track times. Go Mary!

+1

Hopefully she'll go sub 2 in her best distance next year.

She needs to focus on what she can do going forward and not get caught up in thinking about what she did in her past.

Sub 2? You must mean the indoor 600. Outdoor, 2:08 800.

Well it looks like she is sub-17 for 5K anyway.

If I'm reading the splits correctly, it appears that she was with the leaders most of the way. I'm not sure what conclusions, if any, should be drawn from her finish time and place.

Avocado's Number wrote:

If I'm reading the splits correctly, it appears that she was with the leaders most of the way. I'm not sure what conclusions, if any, should be drawn from her finish time and place.

3.5k she was near the front. So she faded over the final 2.5k.

Nonetheless decent run.

In other words, Mary Cain is BACK BABY!!!!

Not bad at all. Wish her the best.

Yep. Not a secret Mary Cain is still recovering and trying to find her form and sense of self again. She has the talent--that's undeniable, but perhaps a coach with some good sense would take her on and help her.

6 seconds back at 3.5k so she probably just died the last 2k. Not great performance but it’s December!

Good for her. She'll be a contender for the win before we know it.

How was her stride form? Did she have that exaggerated forefoot strike?

Meaningless to compare someone who turned pro and qualified for the World Championships at 17 to an average runner. I'm sure Cain herself doesn't compare herself to the average female runner. Athletes of her caliber compare themselves to themselves. In that regard, she comes up short. But good to see her still competing.

So now we should judge everyone's running accomplishments by their life's accomplishments instead.? I guess Methner did not win today because some other kid in the race spent the summer building houses in a 3rd world country. Running is strictly running.

2020 800 trials wrote:

donairs wrote:

Not her distance, so I think this shows a return to general fitness and health. Finally out of her injury cycle? I would love to see her back with some fast track times. Go Mary!

+1

Hopefully she'll go sub 2 in her best distance next year.

Yeah this is great it looked like she went for it, going out with the leaders at 3.5k before fading. She showed up to race & gutted it out. I like Mary a lot. Hopefully we see her in some indoor races at the Armory this winter.

Avocado's Number wrote:

If I'm reading the splits correctly, it appears that she was with the leaders most of the way. I'm not sure what conclusions, if any, should be drawn from her finish time and place.

When you're coming back from injury/time off, the first race is just a baseline to judge fitness. If I were her coach, I would see this as a point to work forward from, not a setback or a defeat.

I wouldn't read too much into this. Six seconds back at 3.5k probably told her (or it would have told me anyway), that my fitness still had a way to go and that there was no sense in beating myself up over the last 2.5k for what (to me if I had a specific time/position goal) would have been a meaningless finish.

She'll do markedly better on her next attempt.

Just saw a picture of her from the race - looks like she was wearing adidas gear - not a swoosh in sight, from what I could see.

I could be wrong - I'm not up to date on what nike gear can look like,

donairs wrote:

Not her distance, so I think this shows a return to general fitness and health. Finally out of her injury cycle? I would love to see her back with some fast track times. Go Mary!

unfortunately it shows she is unable to get beyond general fitness. anyone of her talent would be able to get there already, but i bet anytime she tries some injury appears. it must be frustrating to be able to get to this point so easily and to be tricked into continually trying to transition to faster work only to be injured again.