Salazar's follow-up thoughts on Cain's double

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

 
Nike Oregon Project coach Alberto Salazar sent me a few of his thoughts following Mary Cain's 500/800 workout on Friday at the Gotham Cup, which is a college meet that was held at The Armory.

 
Cain ran a time of 1:12.43 for 500 meters, which is good for No. 7 all-time for a high school girl. (We have entered her results into the TFX database, although some argue that her results should no longer be compared to other preps). She also ran 2:08.51 for 800 meters a short time later.

The post-race interview with Cain is HERE.

And you might want to check it out because Salazar refers to it.

Alberto Salazar

Point 1: "In her excitement after the race (Mary) said the opposite of what she's changed in terms of her hips. She did indeed sit before, (like I did) , so when her foot would strike the ground her hips would be behind her. This means that her center of gravity is behind her footstrike so she has to wait until her body moves up over her foot and knee before she can push forward. This results in more time on the ground and a "braking effect" whenever she hits the ground. Now when her foot hits the ground her knee is right above her foot and her hips are right above her knee so she can immediately push off. She doesn't have to wait for her hips to move from behind to up front. So her hips are now up in front of her body. The goal is that the hips and torso are in the same plane, a straight line with about a 2 degree forward slant."

Point 2: "(Her) arms are much better, but as expected when she sprints all-out sometimes, and forgets, she will revert to past habits. With her left arm in the 500, the elbow definitely went out causing her left hand to cross the body, but she corrected it very well when she came back in the 800 after John Henwood showed her video of the 500."

Point 3: "The goals for the Gotham Cup were for Mary to get a rust-buster in before the BU 1k next Thursday. The 500 we knew would be a much harder race for her so it would make her work hard to maintain her form. As we saw it caused her to relapse a bit, but then in the 800 she corrected it so it was a good learning experience. It also gave her two good efforts on the boards so she'll be more comfortable at BU."

Point 4: "As she mentioned in her interview, she is behind in mileage. She's probably only averaged 45 miles per week for the last eight weeks versus 60-65 last year for those 8 weeks. But because of her more efficient form, better weight training, and physical maturity, she is definitely ahead of where she was last year on Jan. 10. Last week, in fact, she ran 4 x 600 Breakdown (600-400-300-200), which is a common workout of ours and she had her fastest average ever, even better than outdoors, so I think that with the mileage now coming up she will in a month be ready to run faster than she did outdoors at all distances."