JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
From the time she was a little girl, Mary Cain has always loved running.
MARY CAIN: I think I just loved the freedom of it. I mean, I was the kid who - I remember in kindergarten, we would do those, like, laps around the track during gym class, and you had to run as fast as you could. And I liked beating the boys. Like, I had this competitive spirit. But I also just kind of liked this idea that if I pushed myself, I could get better.
SUMMERS: She went on to become the first American high school girl to run 800 meters in under two minutes. And at just 17, she joined the Nike Oregon Project, an elite running training program run by coach Alberto Salazar. But Mary Cain never fully realized her pro running dreams.
In her new memoir, "This Is Not About Running," she recounts the humiliation and abuse she suffered from coaches and teammates alike, and the health battles brought about by severe restrictions on her diet - experiences that she says drove her to the brink of suicide. The Nike Oregon Project shut down in 2019 after Salazar was sanctioned for doping violations. He was later banned from the sport for life amid allegations of sexual assault. Before all that, though, when Cain was still in high school, she said the program and Salazar had an undeniable draw.
CAIN: From my perspective, he was the greatest coach in the world because just that summer, I was watching Mo Farah and Galen Rupp come in 1, 2 at the Olympics in the 10K, and watching Matthew Centrowitz finish fourth in the 1,500. And Matthew and Galen were really the biggest names in American distance running. And so for this famed coach to want to work with me, I mean - I guess anyone who's ever dreamed big about anything or had any sort of role model, just imagine that person calling you and how it would make you feel. There was almost power behind him. There was a trust and a faith from this massive corporation that just honestly made me feel that much more proud for him to have reached out but also that much safer that, like, he knew what he was doing.
SUMMERS: Alberto Salazar put a lot of pressure on you in so many ways to perform, to get faster, to lose weight. You're 5-foot-7, and he wanted you to weigh 114 pounds. The lower your weight got, the more health problems you developed. Can you describe what your body was going through at that time?
CAIN: Yeah. I mean, my body was definitely fighting itself. And I think what I really noticed first, in retrospect, was just how almost emotional I was becoming. In retrospect, a lot of that was because I was being actively abused. So of course...
SUMMERS: Yeah.
CAIN: ...You're going to cry when you're being yelled at. But I think once I started starving myself, that ability to kind of hold it together just started to deteriorate, as did the rest of my body. I mean, I was getting all these aches and pains. I started to develop low back pain. I started to lose hair. I was always cold, and I had this absolutely, like, intense stomach pain that I would get so often - like, probably every other day. And it's fascinating that it's taken me years to realize that's what hunger feels like. And I don't think I actually realized that until I started writing this memoir.
SUMMERS: There's this moment you recall in the book, from 2015, where you are - you're just really struggling and you go to the hotel room that Salazar and the team's sports psychologists are sharing, and you disclosed to them that, as you say, I think I'm losing my mind. I want to kill myself most days. I am cutting myself. Talk about the way that they responded to that, to you.
CAIN: Yeah. I mean, they responded by saying they were tired and wanted to go to bed - is really the long and the short of it. And I think what's so sad for me is how, in that moment, I didn't think, wow, their reaction is wrong, or their reaction is bad. I thought, I feel so bad I'm such a burden to them. And I want people who've ever kind of been in that position to know, like, that was not OK that that person did that. But you also shouldn't feel shame for having that reaction 'cause that's really what abuse does to you.
SUMMERS: You left Nike's Oregon Project in 2016, and your dream had been working with Salazar, becoming pro. What did it feel like to choose to walk away?
CAIN: It was incredibly difficult, and it was deeply upsetting. And in many ways, it wasn't fully my choice. It wasn't something that I wanted to do at the time. It was more a mix of me understanding that I was really not OK, and I needed to get OK. And also, at that point, my parents essentially had an intervention and were like, you need to prioritize your health and your wellness and your mental health more so than your running. And I think that was really difficult for me to hear, but in many ways, I think it's the thing that saved me. Or, like, having people who were like, we don't care about how fast you run, but we care about you.
SUMMERS: If there's a parent out there listening to this who wants to support their child who is ambitious and competitive and wants to participate in their sport at a high level in the way that you did, what piece of advice would you give them? What should that mom or dad or parent be looking out for?
CAIN: I think my parents did an incredible job.
SUMMERS: Yeah.
CAIN: But to me, they were fighting against a broken system. But you just always need to be there, and you always need to be doing your best to show your child that they mean more to you than any of their accomplishments, that you love them not because of how fast they run, not because of the grades they get, but because they're them. Loving your child and showing them that love is not tied to accomplishments is in so many ways what saved my life.
SUMMERS: Mary, I do want to end by asking you about running and what your relationship with running is like today. What role does it play in your life now?
CAIN: I went for a run this morning. It's a rainy day here in Palo Alto, and it was really nice to just be, like, alone with my thoughts, away from my devices, unable to study for a little bit and just kind of be with my body. And I feel really grateful that I've been able to get to this point. I think with some patience and kindness towards myself, I have kind of found myself at this place where I do run again, and I think that's really, really nice for me.
SUMMERS: We have been speaking with Mary Cain. Her memoir "This Is Not About Running" is out now. Mary, thank you.
CAIN: Thank you so much for having me.
SUMMERS: We reached out to both Nike and Alberto Salazar for comment on Cain's allegations of abuse and assertions she had told the coach that she was having suicidal thoughts. Nike sent a statement which read, in part, based on Nike's review of public records and available information, the company did not find that this was raised or reported to Nike at the time. Salazar denied Cain's claims and said, in part, it was always my goal to support Miss Cain and to help her succeed. In 2023, Nike and Salazar settled a multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed by Cain, which alleged emotional and physical abuse.
And if you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988.
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