Top 45 Mary Cain Quotes

The best thing about getting hurt is that it makes you appreciate running so much more.

I hope to be out there showing people that you can come back from really tough, awful times.

Societal pressures can really force girls to look one specific way, when in reality there’s not one way to be good.

Going pro out of high school maybe won’t work for everybody, but I know that wherever my career goes I’m happy with the choice I made.

The life I live is the life I want to live.

Getting to wear a Team USA uniform is amazing. I really wanted to get a uniform.

In track and field, Nike is all-powerful. They control the top coaches, athletes, races, even the governing body.

When I kick I tend to be a little bit too tight and all over the place.

Rather than force young girls to fend for themselves, we have to protect them.

I never let myself get psyched out. My motto is, ‘Stay calm and carry on.’

I think for me, I’ve always come back to the fact that I feel most alive when I’m racing. That sounds very cliche, but for me the reason I feel that is because racing is that opportunity to really find your limit.

I often kind of forget about my running. It’s not until I’m really at these competitions and at these meets that I really remember what I do.

I feel like in New York, we could of course open up more bike lanes, but I think it’s even more important to create access for people to run, because I think it’s more open to people of all socio-economic backgrounds. I think it’s even more of an equalizer, in terms of sports.

I definitely look to people like Usain Bolt and Sanya Richards and especially Allyson Felix, being an American athlete who went pro right after high school. Of course I would like to replicate that career, but obviously as a 1500-meter runner.

One of the things Coach Salazar always tells me is you’re in just as good shape as anyone else and as long as you’re in it with 400 meters to go, you can’t give up.

I’m used to running against the clock.

There’s something really fun about being a kicker. Once you get to 200 to go and you’re still with those girls, you smell blood.

We live in a society in which female weight is both fetishized and also under so much scrutiny. And so trying to shame somebody into losing weight is just such, I mean, an emotionally, psychologically and mentally traumatizing way to coach somebody.

All of my friends and a lot of kids at school know what I do. It’s really something that’s a big deal in my town. So it keeps it really special when people do congratulate me.

Part of me wonders if I had worked with more female psychologists, nutritionists and even coaches, where I’d be today. I got caught in a system designed by and for men which destroys the bodies of young girls.

And I know I will run for the rest of my life because the actual act and art and feeling of running I love, and I hope to compete on a high level.

One thing I struggle with is competing, being in a pack, running with a lot of bodies.

Returning to running has been a really cathartic experience.

Different people have different things that trigger them to realize their situation was not OK. In events like the #MeToo Movement, there are many cases where it took decades for someone to talk about their situation. That doesn’t mean their stories aren’t valid.

In so many ways, I just love athletics. It would be really hard for me to pivot outside of the sports world.

I’m still the weirdo who enjoys taking organic chemistry.

I have a lot of confidence. I’m just excited to compete, and run well.

I’m an Armory girl. I’ve been racing here since eighth grade. Our relay won here my freshman year, but winning the Wanamaker Mile is even bigger. That’s huge.

I joined Nike because I wanted to be the best female athlete ever.

The emotional weight being lifted just let me run free and commit to it. I have almost been able to refind a joy for running.

There’s always people that you can turn to and it’s just about finding the right support system.

Latin AP was a struggle. There were a lot of people in class drawing pictures during that, but I took it seriously.

To be completely consumed by track, that might be a little bit out of my comfort zone. I kind of like having friends who are less tracky.

If you don’t have good running form, there’s only so fast you can go.

I’m not one of those people who is scared, like, ‘Ooooh, I’m going to burn out.’

So in my sophomore year of high school, I ran in Barcelona for the World Junior Championships, and I set the national record for the girls’ 1,500 meters in doing so.

It took me so long to accept that a lot of the stuff I went through was really messed up. I did realize I was being invested in more as a product rather than as a person.

In the U.S., track and field struggles and I am such a trackie. I love the sport. It’s one of those things where if I could garner a little more attention for it or make it a little more exciting, I would love to do that.

Sometimes athletes are expected to lose weight over the course of the season. But usually they work with a professional nutritionist. There’s not some arbitrary target that’s trying to be reached. It’s more go through the process – train hard, eat well.

Now that I’m officially signed with Nike to get to race with the Oregon Project, it’s definitely a dream come true.

It’s nice in that I have my track life and I have my school life, and so far I’ve been balancing them really well.

At the end of the day, as long as you kind of focus on what you can do and what you can achieve and what’s in front of you, that’s all you can be doing and all you should be doing. Anything else is probably unhealthy.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun when you get cheers for being a little kid. But if I wanted to be babied, I would not have gone pro. I’m welcoming the idea that people will be thinking of me as Mary Cain the professional, not Mary Cain the high schooler.

My goal is to demonstrate that you can have a happy, full life and run at your highest level.

I like that kind of weather. Constant drizzle. At the Olympic trials in 2012, my mom was, like, ‘It’s pouring rain out there, Mary. You shouldn’t even notice it. You’re Irish.’