This Is Not About Running - Mary Cain

“This Is Not About Running” is a story about the damage our youth incurs when we prioritize competition over mental and physical health.

Mary Cain was once one of the best high school runners of all time—despite enduring persistent bullying and exclusion from her team in Bronxville. At just sixteen, she escapes that environment through an invitation to the exclusive Oregon Project, under the tutelage of then-famed coach Alberto Salazar, backed by the richest shoe company in the world.

You might expect that kind of financial support and elite coaching to result in a continuation of Cain’s extraordinary high school success. But that isn’t what happens. Instead, Salazar begins to systematically tear her down—supposedly over her “excessive” weight. Cain develops a severe eating disorder, suffers repeated stress fractures, and is pressured to continue training regardless. She breaks down in tears during workouts and races. And still, the abuse continues.

Where are the adults in this story? Who was protecting a sixteen- and seventeen-year-old girl living across the country from her family? The answer likely lies in the grooming dynamics abusers often use. Salazar initially cultivated a relationship with Cain’s parents, but over time, isolation set in. Her parents were left with little access to—or authority over—their underage daughter, and knew very little about what she was enduring.

“I knew he [Alberto] had fallen out of love with me a long time ago,” Cain writes. It fills me with rage that we so often entrust vulnerable young athletes to predators who present themselves as father figures, only to exploit that vulnerability in pursuit of power, control, and even sexual gratification.

I am deeply grateful that Cain spoke up. I am also heartbroken that her whistleblowing came with backlash, that it cost her an extraordinary career, and that she had to fight her way back from an eating disorder. As a survivor of abuse and resulting anorexia myself, I relate in profound ways. It is essential that we protect one another—and continue calling out toxic cultures wherever they exist.

You’ve got this, Mary Cain. Thank you for writing your memoir. Your story has already contributed to meaningful change in long-standing coaching culture.

Out April 28th, 2026

In gratitude to Harper Collins for the Advance Reader’s Copy.