Approved ~~ MJM
Mary Cain was a child running prodigy who seemed to have a future of gold medals in front of her when she joined Nike’s famed Oregon Project in 2013.
Instead, she left the Oregon Project in 2015 and is speaking out now about the pressure she said she felt there to become “thinner and thinner and thinner.”
“So many people looked at me at that time and thought that I was living the dream, and in certain ways I thought I would be,” Cain said in an interview that aired Friday on “Good Morning America.” But nobody cared about me as a person. I was a product and I didn’t know how to cope.”
Cain was a high school running sensation in Bronxville, New York. At age 17 she signed a professional contract with Nike and would go on to train under Alberto Salazar, the legendary running coach who led the Oregon Project, a program for elite runners that was based in Oregon, Nike’s home state.
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