LateRunnerPhil wrote:
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.
https://www.flotrack.org/video/5480164-best-raceworkout-combo-of-your-life-jordan-hasay-mary-cain-workout-wednesdayThis 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.”
Can't stand Salazaar but you are wrong. He did not ruin Cain, she wasn't cut out to be an elite athlete mentally. She's been away from him long enough with her talent she could easily be putting together respectable performances that at would put her close to the of the NCAA D1 level if he was the problem. But she isn't close to that point now. Maybe Salazaar's program wasn't a good fit but he didn't ruin her. There are numerous talented highschoolers that graduate each year that will completely disappear and or quit within a year or two of starting college but they don't get the same publicity because Cain was a next-level talent. Competing at that level year in, year out takes a person with a certain mentality and desire to succeed in the sport. You have to motivated to deal with the grind day in, day out year after year. A lot of people can't do that or just really don't have the passion to do so. At a certain level, those who do it because they are talented and those who really love it are separated out. If you aren't one of those who really love eventually you get broken by something; a coach, an injury, other things in life. The coach is an easy target but in some cases its the athlete.
In Cain's case maybe under a different program, it would have taken longer to "ruin" her. But I think she likely would have been ruined before her career ever came to real fruition.