Mary Cain Is Fixing Female Sports

The Rich Roll Podcast

Rich Roll

Health & Fitness, Education, Self-improvement, Society & Culture

4.8 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2021

⏱️ 154 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A cornerstone of this podcast is the power of sport to catalyze personal and societal change, cultivate confidence, and ultimately transform lives. But what happens when sport breaks you? If you’ve listened to my conversations with Lindsay Crouse and Lauren Fleshman, you know this story is all too familiar within athletic institutions—particularly Nike. Today’s guest is busting this paradigm. Meet Mary Cain. Established as the fastest girl in a generation by the time she reached high school, Mary was only 16 when she qualified for the Olympic Trials. At 17, she became the youngest American track and field athlete to make a world championship, competing in Moscow in the 1500 meters. Olympic glory seemed a foregone conclusion. Until that is, she joined Nike’s elite Oregon Project team run by infamous coach Alberto Salazar. And that’s when everything changed. Under severe pressure from Salazar and others to lose weight, her mental and physical health began to crumble. Ultimately, her body collapsed—and her running career behind it. Then she just disappeared. Until November of 2019 that is, when Mary broke her silence on what happened and why, bravely exposing the abusive system that derailed her in a New York Times Video OpEd entitled, “I Was the Fastest Girl in America, Until I joined Nike”. Here’s the thing about Mary: she’s emerged from this whole experience stronger—both as an athlete and as an advocate resolute on creating positive change for the next generation of female athletes. Now 25, she continues to run while serving as the New York Community Manager for the running apparel brand Tracksmith. In addition, this podcast announces her new role as CEO of Atalanta, a new NYC-based elite running team & community non-profit Mary founded with the dual mission of promoting running community, inclusivity & diversity, while also rewriting the rule book on professional women’s athletics. Today we get into all of it. FULL BLOG & SHOW NOTES: bit.ly/richroll611 YouTube: bit.ly/marycain611 I have a ton of respect for this young woman. Her story is powerful. It’s instructive. And I’m proud to help share it. Peace + Plants, Rich Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I pulled my parents aside like really early on in this, you know, I was like, I have to
0:08.8	tell you everything.
0:10.1	And like we did the deep dive and we went like, this was like an hour and a half conversation
0:14.9	of me just sharing everything.
0:18.2	And you know, there's obviously a lot of tears that I didn't even get through a podcast
0:21.8	with I crying.
0:22.8	And at the end, like my parents' question was like, what are you going to do?
0:28.5	And I said, I don't think I'm ever going to be a pro runner again.
0:34.4	But I love this sport.
0:36.4	If nobody's ever going to sign me, nobody's ever going to follow me again.
0:41.8	I said, but I can't live with myself if I don't share this.
0:46.2	And if I don't like help that one person.
0:50.5	And I remember like they were so scared for me and so proud of me at the same time.
0:58.4	And I think for them it was just just like, it was almost like this happy proud.
1:06.2	And this like you're doing something bigger than yourself.
1:09.7	And again, we didn't think anybody would watch the video.
1:14.7	I thought if anything, I'm going to be very honest when I say this.
1:20.2	Having so many people watch that protected me in a way that I don't know who people understand.
1:27.2	That's Mary Kane.
1:30.5	And this is the RetroL podcast.
1:43.1	The RetroL podcast.
1:46.6	A recurring theme of this podcast is the power of sport to catalyze personal change,
	...

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