How Mary Met Al

TRIALS RUN IN

Cain actually had her first meeting with Salazar, now the esteemed coach of the Nike Oregon Project, earlier that summer at the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials – as a wide-eyed, 15-year-old fan of the Cuban immigrant from Massachusetts who won three consecutive New York City Marathon titles from 190-82 and won the famed “Duel in the Sun” over Dick Beardsley at the 1982 Boston Marathon.

“I took a picture with him because he is Alberto Salazar,” Cain said. “It was actually pretty funny because I was so nervous going over to him and he was like, ‘Oh, are you that fast high school girl?’ And I was like ‘Yeah!’”

Salazar’s recollection of the moment is more matter-of-fact.

“She and her coach came by and the coach introduced us,” he said. “I had heard of her before and so we just chatted a little while.”

Added Cain: “Since then, I’ve asked him, ‘How did you know who I was?’ He goes, ‘You know, being an East Coast guy I always loved it when East Coast people would beat those California kids so you were kind of on my radar.’”

The two went their separate ways after that meeting, Salazar on to the London Olympics where he guided Britain’s Mo Farah to gold medals in the 5000m and 10,000m and American Galen Rupp to silver in the 10,000m, and Cain off to the World Junior Championships in Barcelona where she finished sixth in 4:11.01, breaking the American high school record.

When Salazar returned home from the Games, he pulled up a YouTube video of Cain’s race and was struck as much by her raw speed as her biomechanics, which featured a fluid stride but a chicken-wing arm swing – Cain says her arm motion was “absolutely awful” – due to lack of upper-body strength.

“I remember kind of seeing her form and how she was really running with her elbows out and stuff,” Salazar said, “so I called her coach to tell him to make sure that he worked on her form and that she could have a great career if they worked on her biomechanics. The coach that I was put through told me that he was no longer coaching her. I asked, ‘Well who is coaching her?’ He said we don’t know yet.”

So Salazar asked for Cain’s phone number.