Former High School Phenom Mary Cain Finishes First Race in 2.5 Years—and Wins It – runnersworld.com

On Sunday, May 12, a familiar face in the running scene came charging through Central Park: former high school phenom Mary Cain, who broke the tape at the New York Road Runners’ Japan Four Mile in 21:50.

The course was familiar to Cain, who lives in Manhattan’s East Village and trains regularly in Central Park, but the act of racing itself was something she hadn’t done in a long time.

“I haven’t raced in two and a half years, so it was nice to get that monkey off my back,” Cain told Runner’s World. “My coach, John Henwood, and I sat down a few weeks ago and decided that this [race] would be something fun to start my year of racing. We just finished a rebuilding block of training, so we wanted to top it off with a hard effort.”

Though she’s only 23, Cain describes herself as an “old woman in the sport,” since she entered the elite running scene at such a young age. While attending high school in Bronxville, New York, she set the high school freshman 1500-meter record of 4:17.84 in 2011. The teen went on to run 1:59.51 for 800 meters and 4:04.62 for 1500 meters outdoors, as well as 4:24:11 for one mile and 9:38.68 for two miles indoors, and set numerous high school records at the state and national level.

Then in August 2013, at age 17, she became the youngest runner in history to make the 1500-meter final at the IAAF World Championships, which she finished 10th in.

After Worlds, Cain signed a professional running contract with Nike before she even turned 18, and made her pro debut in January 2014. Following her high school graduation that spring, she enrolled in University of Portland in Portland, Oregon, where she joined the elite Nike Oregon Distance Project. Over the next few years, she was coached by Alberto Salazar, who started mentoring Cain remotely in 2012, when she was a high school junior.

“I felt a lot of pressure to get to a certain level in a certain amount of time,” Cain said, referring to her decision to go pro as a high school senior. “It [the pressure] was mostly internal, though. I was lucky to have friends and family who were always supportive. It didn’t matter to them how I raced.”

Unfortunately, as many talented young runners come to realize, competing at the elite level at a vulnerable age isn’t always sustainable. In order to keep improving, Cain had to significantly ramp up her training from her former 30-mile weeks in high school. But the new training intensity, coupled with the pressure she felt to perform, ultimately led to injuries and forced time off from running.

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“Some runners have a constant progression, but mine was very stop and start because of injuries,” she said. “I would come off an injury, get too excited, and go too hard too soon. When you’re healthy, it’s easy to stay healthy. But when you’re hurt, it’s easy to stay hurt.”

Cain didn’t disclose what injuries she suffered, but the hang-ups kept her in and out of the racing circuit for the next four years. In October 2016, she announced on her blog that she had left the Nike Oregon Project—though she continued to be sponsored by Nike—and moved back home to New York, where she enrolled in business and pre-med classes at Fordham University. In the process, she stopped being coached by Salazar and instead joined Henwood, a 2004 Olympic 10,000-meter runner.

Over the last year, her primary focus has been staying healthy while building up a solid base. “I feel like I’m in my fall season before track starts,” she said. “We haven’t been threatening my speed side.”

Under Henwood’s guidance, she has taken most of her training off the track, doing tempos and long runs—the latter of which, she said, are usually the “hardest session of the week”—along rural roads outside of New York City. On weekdays, she does base runs along the East River Greenway on the lower tip of Manhattan, and two times per week, she’ll do workouts such as mile repeats on the road or 800s in Central Park.

“I’m hoping to get on the track soon,” Cain said. “We have been doing so much strength work lately, but we haven’t tapped into speed much. I’m definitely looking forward to doing the fast stuff again.”

As for her summer racing plans, she said she doesn’t have anything slated yet on the calendar. Right now, her training is mapped out for just two weeks at a time. And that’s fine with Cain. She’s just enjoying the feeling of fresh, strong, healthy legs.

“The best thing about getting hurt is that it makes you appreciate running so much more,” she said.