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The formal partnership between the sport’s brightest rising star and its most revered coach commences this weekend, when Cain starts training full-time under Salazar’s direction. [Editor's note: Just a week ago, Cain told Marc Bloom for a Running Times article Running Supports This Marathoners Sobriety.]
The first race in the new regime will take place November 3, when Cain runs in the open division, against professionals, at the Dash to the Finish Line 5-K in Manhattan, on the day before the New York City Marathon.
“There is no question that Mary belongs in that company,” says Salazar, who stresses that, under their agreement, Cain retains her amateur status and future NCAA eligibility. “A talent like hers only comes around once in a generation. If you get a kid like her running right at a young age, she can accomplish incredible things. Mary is a girl with a special gift, and she and her family see an opportunity to develop that gift.”
A 4.0 student and former competitive swimmer, Cain exploded on the national scene at the Penn Relays last April. A 15-year-old sophomore at the time, she won the Championship of America Mile in 4:39.28, a meet and national record for 10th graders. Defeating a field that included two-time defending race champion Angel Piccirillo and Ajee Wilson, the 2012 world junior champion in the 800, Cain covered the last 400 meters in a blazing 62.5 seconds. Later in the spring she notched a 2:03.34 PR in the 800 meters, won the U.S. national junior (19 and under) outdoor title in 4.14.74, and, as the youngest athlete in the meet, competed in the 800 at the Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon. It was there that she briefly met Salazar.
“I was the basic nerdy kid thrilled to get her picture taken with the legend,” Cain recalls with a laugh.
The meeting didn’t fully register with Salazar at the time, but later in the summer he remembered it well: at the junior world championships in Barcelona in July, Cain, a gangly, just-turned-16, high-school-junior-to-be, finished 6th in the 1500 meters, her 4.11.01 performance shattering Jordan Hasay’s high school American record, set in 2008, by nearly 4 seconds.
“I was back home in Portland after the Olympics, watching a replay of Mary’s race in Barcelona on YouTube,” Salazar says. “I was struck by a few things: her breathtaking talent and competiveness, and the fact that she could run so fast and still have imperfections. There were some biomechanical glitches in her stride, along with some imbalance and strength issues. If that stuff got fixed, this girl could accomplish anything.”
Salazar telephoned Cain’s coaches in Bronxville, a suburb of New York City, to report what he’d seen and suggest improvements. He reported the same to Mary’s father, Charlie Cain, an anesthesiologist with little background in the sport. “We were honored by Alberto’s call,” says Cain. “It also came at a crucial juncture in Mary’s running career. For some time we’d been concerned that she was overracing, that after her big summer in 2012, the standard three-season high school running calendar was wearing her down.”
At the same time, Cain says, his daughter was winning the great majority of her early-season cross-country races by a minute or more. “She just wasn’t getting challenged,” he says. “Mary loved competing for her school, but we were concerned that, unless something changed, she might not develop to her full potential.”
According to Cain, the issue came to a head in September, when Mary turned down an invitation to run the prestigious 5th Avenue Mile because it conflicted with a high school cross country meet. “It was about that time that we started exploring possibilities with Alberto,” he says.
Over a series of conversations during the next few weeks, the present agreement evolved: Cain continues as a student at Bronxville High School, but no longer competes on the school teams. Salazar writes her workouts, which are administered by a local coach chosen by Salazar. To maintain her amateur status and future NCAA eligibility, Cain forgoes prize money, sponsorships, and free equipment and travel. She can’t defend her New York State track and cross country titles, but will be eligible for national high school championship events such as the Nike and Foot Locker cross country championships, and can pursue national high school records. The Cain family is required to pay Salazar an NCAA-established market rate for his coaching services, and, with a few exceptions, finance Mary’s training, racing, and travel expenses.
“In most ways, the arrangement is very similar to the one I had with Galen when he was in high school in Portland,” Salazar says. “Our focus is on long-term improvement. My first priority is to clean up her biomechanics; everything else you can fix later.”
To that end, along with Rupp and Oregon Project member and 1500-meter Olympian Matthew Centrowitz, Cain will attend a USATF-sponsored biomechanics conference in Las Vegas later in October. She will meet Salazar again in New York in November for the 5-K, and see him in Portland later that month at the Nike cross country national meet. Next summer, Salazar hopes, Cain swill spend several weeks at an Oregon Project training camp. Otherwise, for the foreseeable future, the runner and coach will mostly collaborate with a continent’s distance between them.
“It’s not perfect,” Salazar says of that aspect of the arrangement. “But Mary and her parents don’t want her to leave home. She’s a very bright girl with a solid family foundation who understands what we’re trying to accomplish, and who is extremely grounded and motivated. We’re going to take it one step at a time. Mary will get faster, but at the same time, as with all my athletes, I’m thinking long-term. We’re looking 10 years down the road.”
Displaying wisdom as precocious as her running talent, Cain takes a similarly balanced view.
“I fell in love with running the first time I really tried it,” she says. “My attitude has always been, ‘How far can I take this?’ At the end of the day, it’s all about enjoying the sport and doing my best. I’m incredibly pumped to be working with Alberto Salazar. I want to stay healthy, have fun, and see what happens next.”
John Brant co-authored Alberto Salazar's memoir, 14 Minutes.
