Editor’s note: With high school star Mary Cain so much in the news, we thought it would be interesting to hear first-hand what it’s like to be a young female runner coached by Alberto Salazar. Caitlin Chock, the first American high school girl to break 16:00 for 5000 meters, joined the Nike Oregon Project in 2004 while a teenager. Below is her account of what that experience was like.

I vividly remember the day Alberto Salazar called my house inviting me to run for the Nike Oregon Project. I thought it was a prank call. My mom was the one who picked up. I had just come back from a run, and she turned to face me while saying into the phone, "So you say you're Alberto Salazar...suuuuure."

This was soon after I'd left the University of Richmond because of missing the West Coast and differences with the coaches. Because of the letter of intent I’d signed and NCAA regulations, I’d pretty much soiled any chance for another athletic scholarship. My parents weren't in the position to pay tuition for another college, and I hadn't a clue what my next step would be. Getting a call from a running legend with a Nike contract seemed way out of the realm of possibilities.

It took about four times of Alberto promising that yes, he was who he said he was, and my mom nearly hanging up, for me to grab the phone and say hello.

The next days were a whirlwind. My parents and I flew up to Portland, met with Alberto, and took a tour of the Nike training facilities. Eventually we made our way to the track, the infield dense with trees. Alberto knelt down to the track, a smile in his eyes, and said, “This is where we do the work.”

I instantly clicked with Alberto. Fresh out of high school and having never really left home, I felt safe moving from California to Oregon to be under his tutelage. He was just as much a coach as a mentor, friend, and advocate. I trusted him 110 percent, which, as a runner, is exactly what you need. In a sport where the mind can be your greatest asset or your undoing, having a coach you can put your full faith in is key.

During my senior year of high school track I trained with a club coach, which meant I didn’t compete for my high school. In my first few months with Alberto, he wanted to ensure I handled the transition well. My club coach flew up so they could talk in person over what my previous training had looked liked.

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Running as a professional is like living at running camp. You get up, eat, do your first run, follow up with drills and weights, eat lunch, take a nap, do an afternoon session, eat dinner, and typically get some kind of massage or injury preventative/maintenance work done. Your training partners become your friends, and you’re in constant contact with your coach, trainers, and therapists.

I came into the Project at the same time as Adam and Kara Goucher. She and I were the only females in the group. As with getting a phone call from Alberto, training with one of my idols was incredible. It took me a bit to get over my nerdy-runner awe, but we became friends and there is no better company over countless miles.

Hard workout days would see us warmed-up and ready to go at the track or grass fields at 10 a.m. Kara and I would get there early to hit the woodchip trail encompassing the Nike campus before going into our warm-up drills.

For the easy days, we had a set time to meet for drills and strength work; we’d do our first run of the day before this. Sometimes I’d run with Kara on these days, sometimes I’d run solo. After strength work, most days a group of us would go to lunch before parting ways to rest and take our naps. We each knew we had a certain number of things to accomplish for the day: workouts, drills, strength exercises, etc. If there were set times to meet we made sure to be on time; from there, so long as we made sure to get everything accomplished for the day, we were able to be flexible with our schedules. I also enrolled in Portland State University, taking classes part-time.

Alberto is known for looking at ways to lessen injury risk. In the Nike Oregon Project, underwater treadmills are most heavily used for the second, shorter run of the day, to get more miles minus the pounding. They were great…until the day the anti-gravity treadmills arrived; those, to be honest, are heavenly. I was able to run on a stress reaction (near-fracture) without doing any damage. For retaining running-specific fitness during injury they are invaluable.

Entering our bubble you also gain privy to experts in every facet of sports performance: strength coaches, dietitians, and sports psychiatrists, among others. About every two months we would test to see how we were responding to the simulated altitude machines; the results helped us gauge if we were getting enough altitude time.

These machines were either set up for entire rooms, or, if you were living in an apartment or traveling, hoses and a tent would encompass your bed.  The aim was to be breathing at attitude as much as possible when not training.

A daily nap was considered part of training. I liked to get 8-10 hours of sleep a night, then an hour or so nap during the day. At first it was tough for me to take a nap because I’m naturally a go-go person. But the more I trained, the more I understood how important naps are for recovery. Eventually I turned into a person who loved sleep.

When I first moved up to Oregon I lived with the Salazars. They were incredibly warm and welcomed me more as a friend than a tenant. I felt like I’d entered a family environment, even though I paid rent and contributed grocery money. Alberto’s wife, Molly, was an excellent cook and most nights we’d eat together and watch TV. Having this set-up, similar to what I was used to at home during high school, provided continuity; mentally it was one less variable to worry about as my training evolved. Eventually, when I did move out on my own, I missed being around them and their pets; it was a privilege and a pleasure living with them all.

Running in the Cold
Alberto was incredibly attuned to ensuring my training volume and intensity of workouts was increased gradually; if anything, he erred on the side of conservative. My first weeks I scaled things back a bit in terms of running. Some of my land miles were swapped for underwater treadmill miles.

The focus was heavily on the “outside” work: core and strength work, drills, and form-focused work. I was surprised at how much of this work was necessary to be a runner at the elite level. There’s also the “maintenance” work; not just massages, but being smart in everything you do, the icing, the sleeping, running on soft surfaces. None of this had been part of my routine in high school.

Honestly, I didn’t feel as if there was a lot of extra pressure that came with being a Project Member. It’s hard to describe, but typically, if you get to the elite level, most of the pressure you feel is internal. Sure, I was running on a higher level, and of course I wanted to do well and nail workouts, but I’d always wanted to do that. Having the name “Nike” attached to me was a sense of pride. Alberto believed I had earned it and I didn’t ever feel like I had to keep on proving that I belonged.

Having Kara there helped too. Running with her three or four days a week, talking, joking with her, and seeing she was a real person who dealt with and thought about the same things I did gave me perspective. Whether we both had a stellar workout, or only one of us did, or one had an off day, we were there for each other and best knew what to say. She also helped with the nerves that come with racing and shooting for big goals.

Some of the goal times that Alberto and I discussed may have sounded daunting, I knew that Alberto wouldn’t say something if he didn’t think was achievable. It got to the point where if he said something, be it such-and-such time or workout I could do, even if to my brain it sounded impossible, I believed him. This really helped my confidence. To a large degree, Alberto felt like a buffer between me and what some would expect to be an incredible amount of pressure that comes with being a pro.

I tend to handle the pressure of bigger races and competition well; I love racing people faster than me. Sure, I’d get the nervous butterflies in my stomach, but in the same sense that everyone feels at the start of a race or tough workout, that feeling of venturing into the unknown and hoping for a certain outcome. Those nerves were of enticement and excitement, not pressure or fear.

My weakness has always been doing too much; I can take that OCD trait a bit too far. Alberto would keep that in check and help me retain the balance necessary to not lose perspective. He’s been through all of the same things we were going through. I tried hard to keep the perspective that I ran not because of my Nike contract, but because of my passion for the sport and the drive to discover what my best is.

Leaving the Project
Races - Places?

My performances began to spike and nosedive like a wayward EKG. One day I would PR in workouts, the next I’d be running on par with a JV high-schooler. Never knowing if your next workout was going to be standout or embarrassing was mentally brutal. Alberto never gave up on me, and he forced me to stay strong. Through everything Alberto would tell me, “Stay the course.”

Since my performances were up and down, I didn’t race. I found out I was anemic. Things got better, then worse. I have talked openly about struggling with eating issues during high school, and as my running got worse, so did my eating habits. Eventually focus shifted back to getting my overall health in check first. Working on that piece I started to do other work at Nike part-time.

Regardless of how my running turned out, Alberto always put my best interest as a person first and kept an eye on my future. Not once did I feel like Alberto had given up on me as a runner. He had more faith in me than I did. The outside work at Nike he helped to arrange was probably used more as a distraction to keep me from driving myself insane wondering why my running was so off.

In 2010 I was out running and was hit by a car. The driver took off, and when I looked down my right leg was literally hanging on by a muscle string that was part of my calf. Doctors said I wouldn’t walk normally again, and that running would be impossible.

Today I’m a regular, healthy runner. I proved the doctors wrong mostly because I refused to accept I’d never be a runner again. In fact, it’s because I was a runner that I eventually fought my way back and didn’t just curl up into the fetal position and give up on life.

What got me through it was repeating, “Stay the course.”

Caitlin Chock (caitchock.com) set the then-national high school 5000-meter record (15:52.88) in 2004. At age 26, she’s now a freelance writer and artist living in California.

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