Description:
By one of the fastest runners of her generation, an affecting, brutally honest memoir of elite sports gone wrong--and a clear-eyed call for how parents, coaches, and young athletes themselves can build a healthier youth sports culture.
Few women have ever run 800 meters in under two minutes. Even fewer people have taken on running's abusive training culture and won. Mary Cain has done both.
She emerged as a running phenom at age 12, a straight-A student obsessed with Greco-Roman mythology and the freedom she felt when she ran fast. Like any middle-schooler, she just wanted to fit in, so she learned to run through the discomfort of hard training sessions, and the confusion of her coaches' and teammates' bullying. And she was overjoyed when, at 16, Alberto Salazar called to invite her to train with the famed Nike Oregon Project.
Cain was poised to transform the sport, Salazar told her. She resolved to hold on to his favor, even as he insisted she lose weight and push through the pain of emerging injury. For years, she excelled, setting records against elite runners twice her age. The Olympics were in her sights.
But off the track, Cain was crumbling. She snuck granola bars in the middle of the night and sank into a deep depression as injury after injury set in. Finally, she left the Oregon Project, telling herself she just needed a break. A chorus rang out across the running community: What happened to Mary Cain?
Now, with her suit against Nike behind her, Cain is ready to share her side of the story--and to flip the script on abuse in youth sports. She draws on her diaries from this wrenching period of abuse to show, with clarity we rarely see, how young minds respond to the win-at-all-costs culture that pervades youth sports today. By turns raw, wry, and impassioned, This Is Not About Running is a fierce memoir of the damage wrought when we prioritize competition over mental health.
Brief description:
Mary Cain is a professional runner and advocate for mental health in sports. At age seventeen, she became the youngest American athlete to represent the US at the track and field World Championships. She is also the founder of Atalanta NYC, which mentors underserved girls in the Bronx through running. Cain is a graduate of Fordham University and currently attends Stanford Medical School.
Review Quotes:
"A raw account.... Cain's memoir grippingly charts her path from glory to disillusionment to despair and back. It's a powerful and haunting testimonial." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"This Is Not About Running is a brave and deeply important contribution to the conversation around how we treat women in sports. Mary Cain's voice forces an honest reckoning, reminding us that real progress requires confronting silence and holding both systems and people accountable." - Allyson Felix, seven-time gold medal Olympian
"Mary Cain's story is a wake-up call for the entire sports world. In This Is Not About Running, she peels back the curtain on a toxic culture that prioritizes medals over health and marketing over humanity. It's not just a moving, courageous memoir about the dark side of elite sports. It's a demand for a better, safer future for all performers. Essential reading for us all." - Steve Magness, bestselling author of Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness
"To know Mary Cain for real is to love her. This Is Not About Running exposes what happens when performance is valued over people and silence is mistaken for strength. Mary's book is entirely in her voice, uninhibited and, finally, after years feeling silenced and afraid, she is fearless." - Alexi Pappas, Olympian and author of Bravey: Chasing Dreams, Befriending Pain, and Other Big Ideas
"This incredible book isn't a story about one woman. It's a story about a system designed to commodify at any cost -- their slogan more of a threat than a motivation. The best books change how we think, and Mary Cain has done just that." - Michelle Wolf, writer and comedian
"This Is Not About Running is about ambition, betrayal, courage, and, yes, running. Mary Cain's story deserves to be known by everyone in women's sports--from athletes and coaches to parents and fans." - Alice Robb, author of Don't Think, Dear: On Loving and Leaving Ballet
"Forthright.... Cain's courageous and candid memoir may help older teens and student athletes recognize red flags of abuse in sports culture." - Booklist