Explore every episode of the podcast Salty Talks

Your kids already did the work. The last two weeks decide whether it shows up on the one day the season is decided.

In 1992, researchers at McMaster University gave nine trained runners three different final weeks before a test. Rest made them slower. Easy running helped a little. Cutting the miles and keeping the speed let them run 22 percent longer at race pace. Coach Saltmarsh breaks down what a taper actually does, what the research says about how much to cut, and why most high school coaches taper too little or too late.

In this episode:

• What a taper does in the body, and what it can't do
• The three rules: cut the volume, keep the intensity, keep the frequency
• Why high school runners need a smaller cut than the research suggests
• The four taper mistakes coaches make every fall
• A 14-day championship taper by athlete level
• Race week: sleep, fuel, routine, and restless teenagers
• Five things to do this week

Full transcript, the 14-day taper tables:

Periodization guide

Coaching tools and the 22-Week Season Blueprint

Coach Jason Saltmarsh is a USATF Level 2 Endurance Coach with 25 years of coaching and 31 state champions.

Show notes and links

• The Science of Periodization: Building the Perfect High School XC Macrocycle
• Why famous workouts fail high school runners
• Chronic sleep debt is wrecking your season
• The 3 essential XC workouts that build a championship engine
• Pre-race warmup routine
• When fatigue becomes overtraining
• Free training pace calculator (threshold and race paces)
• 5K race strategy for coaches

Championship courses reward the runners who rehearse them. How to read a course, where to spend and save on the hills, and why Derryfield finds out who really did the work. Course-specific racing for the meets that matter.

Full transcript and show notes: https://coachsaltmarsh.com/salty-talks-podcast/salty-talks-reading-the-course/

As racing load peaks, recovery is the whole game. Why chronic sleep debt quietly wrecks seasons, the ratio Josh Kerr lives by, and the team norms that turn rest into a scheduled skill instead of an afterthought.

Full transcript and show notes: https://coachsaltmarsh.com/salty-talks-podcast/salty-talks-sleep-recovery/

The pro workouts that go viral are built for pro recovery. Why copying elite sessions breaks teenagers, and how to steal the intent of a famous workout without the injury bill that comes with the exact prescription.

Full transcript and show notes: https://coachsaltmarsh.com/salty-talks-podcast/salty-talks-michigan-workout/

Even splits sound smart and cost you races. What the world record pacing data actually shows, why the first mile decides the last, and how to train runners to deploy their fitness tactically on championship day instead of blowing up early. Full transcript and show notes: https://coachsaltmarsh.com/salty-talks-podcast/salty-talks-5k-race-strategy/

Three workouts do most of the work in a cross country season. The threshold run that builds the engine, the critical velocity session that builds 5K fatigue resistance, and the eight second hill sprints that build the chassis. How to pace all three without a lactate meter, how to fit them into a week that already has a race in it, and the four things I cut from my program to make room.

Show Notes & Links

• The 3 Essential XC Workouts That Build a Championship Engine — https://coachsaltmarsh.com/essential-high-school-xc-workouts/
• Free training pace calculator (threshold and CV paces) — https://coachsaltmarsh.com/lactate-threshold-calculator/
• Norwegian Method for high school runners — https://coachsaltmarsh.com/norwegian-method-high-school-guide/
• Strength training: the 2-session weekly protocol — https://coachsaltmarsh.com/strength-training-high-school-distance-runners/
• Speed as a skill for distance runners — https://coachsaltmarsh.com/speed-development-distance-runners/
• When fatigue becomes overtraining — https://coachsaltmarsh.com/when-fatigue-becomes-overtraining/
• Chronic sleep debt is wrecking your season — https://coachsaltmarsh.com/chronic-sleep-debt-is-wrecking-your-season/
• 5K race strategy for coaches — https://coachsaltmarsh.com/5k-race-strategy-for-coaches/
• The complete guide to high school cross country training — https://coachsaltmarsh.com/high-school-cross-country-training/

The warmup is not a ritual you perform before the race. It's the first 400 meters of your race plan, and it happens 45 minutes before the gun.

Timed for the first meets of the season. Coach Saltmarsh breaks down what a warmup is actually doing physiologically, the one phase almost every high school program skips, and why teams that know the protocol still execute it badly.

In this episode:

- The two mechanisms: muscle temperature and VO2 kinetics

- Why the thermal benefit decays in about 20 minutes, and what that means when the meet runs late

- The priming effort, one 200 at race pace, and the 2013 Ingham study behind it

- Where the cross country version differs from the track version, and where the internet gets that wrong

- The six-phase protocol, built backward from gun time instead of forward from arrival

- How the warmup connects to 5K race strategy and that slightly fast opening 800

- What to say to the athlete who wants to save it for the race

Plus five things to do before your first meet, and the single change that fixed it for our program.

SHOW NOTES

The exact pre-race warmup for 800m and 1600m runners:

https://coachsaltmarsh.com/pre-race-warmup-800m-1600m/

Mastering 5K race strategy, a science-backed guide for coaches:

https://coachsaltmarsh.com/5k-race-strategy-for-coaches/

Ep. 8, The Speed Reserve Nobody Talks About:

https://coachsaltmarsh.com/salty-talks-podcast/salty-talks-speed-reserve/

Heat & Humidity Adjuster (free):

https://coachsaltmarsh.com/running-heat-calculator/

The 22-Week Season Blueprint:

https://coachsaltmarsh.com/store-coach-saltmarsh/

Your 5K runners are slow because they can't sprint.

Last meet of the season, we needed a body for the 4x400 and someone said the fatal sentence: "He's in shape, put him in the relay." My best miler split 64. A sophomore sprinter who has never voluntarily run more than 600 meters split 52 and made it look easy. Danny was fitter than everyone in that race. He was also, mechanically, slower than a kid who couldn't finish a two-mile.

That relay is this whole episode.

Speed reserve is the gap between how fast an athlete can possibly run and how fast they actually race. Two kids both running 75-second laps for a 5:00 mile: one is at 73% of his max, the other is at 90%. Same pace, completely different race. One is cruising with a gear left. The other has been redlining since the gun.

In this one:

• The two-athlete math that reorganized how I think about race pace
• Why Paavolainen's runners got faster at 5K with zero change in VO2 max
• The three rules that make sprint work actually work (and why cutting the rest ruins it)
• Wickets, flying 30s, and short hill sprints, with the freshman and varsity versions of each
• The high/low week that fits speed in without costing you a single aerobic mile
• The four mistakes that make coaches conclude "speed work doesn't do anything"
• Whether sprinting is actually an injury risk, or the vaccination against one

Plus what happened to Danny the following season, and the one sentence he said after his mile that I've never forgotten.

If you listened to Episode 6 and think this contradicts it, stick around for the intro. It doesn't. It's the other half of the sentence.

SHOW NOTES

Full article: Speed as a Skill, A Guide for Distance Runnershttps://coachsaltmarsh.com/speed-development-distance-runners/

Full transcript and show notes:https://coachsaltmarsh.com/salty-talks-podcast/salty-talks-speed-reserve/

Zone 2 training and the 4-year burnout crisis:https://coachsaltmarsh.com/zone-2-training-for-high-school-runners-solving-the-4-year-burnout-crisis/

When fatigue becomes overtraining:https://coachsaltmarsh.com/when-fatigue-becomes-overtraining/

Training Paces Calculator (LT1 / LT2), free:https://coachsaltmarsh.com/lactate-threshold-calculator/

The 22-Week Season Blueprint:https://coachsaltmarsh.com/store-coach-saltmarsh/

The topic most coaching resources skip. What RED-S is, the warning signs that show up in training data first, real calorie needs for female distance runners, and how to develop athletes without breaking them.

SHOW NOTESFull article: Coaching Female Distance Runners, What the Science Actually Says https://coachsaltmarsh.com/coaching-female-distance-runners/When fatigue becomes overtraining: https://coachsaltmarsh.com/when-fatigue-becomes-overtraining/Zone 2 and the polarized easy/hard approach: https://coachsaltmarsh.com/zone-2-training-for-high-school-runners-solving-the-4-year-burnout-crisis/Strength training for high school distance runners: https://coachsaltmarsh.com/strength-training-high-school-distance-runners/The 22-Week Season Blueprint: https://coachsaltmarsh.com/store-coach-saltmarsh/If you or an athlete's family needs support with disordered eating, the National Alliance for Eating Disorders offers a free helpline staffed by licensed clinicians: https://www.allianceforeatingdisorders.com

Why so many promising freshmen are done by senior year, and why “more miles always” breaks them. The Zone 2 case for training slower to race faster, and the numbers that back it up.

SHOW NOTES

Full article: Zone 2 Training for High School Runners, Solving the 4-Year Burnout Crisis

https://coachsaltmarsh.com/zone-2-training-for-high-school-runners-solving-the-4-year-burnout-crisis/

What is an easy run? Zone 2 vs the Daniels method:

https://coachsaltmarsh.com/zone-2-training-vs-the-daniels-method-what-is-an-easy-run/

When fatigue becomes overtraining:

https://coachsaltmarsh.com/when-fatigue-becomes-overtraining/

Chronic sleep debt is wrecking your season:

https://coachsaltmarsh.com/chronic-sleep-debt-is-wrecking-your-season/

The Norwegian Method 14-Week XC Plan:

https://coachsaltmarsh.com/norwegian-xc-training-plan/

The 22-Week Season Blueprint: https://coachsaltmarsh.com/store-coach-saltmarsh/

Coach Jason Saltmarsh takes on the job almost nobody plans for: getting handed a middle school team. Most coaches make one of two mistakes with it. They water down the varsity plan, or they treat it as supervised recess. Both cost you the same thing, which is the freshman class that walks in two years later.

This episode covers what the job actually is, why minutes beat miles at this age, and how to deliver real training to athletes who will race anything you put in front of them.

• Why the number on the schedule should be minutes, not miles

• How to run a hard workout that a twelve-year-old cannot turn into a time trial

• The seventeen minutes of every practice that most coaches skip

• What USATF actually says about race distance, and the number to quote to a parent

• One loop, one clock, six doses: coaching grades five through twelve at once

A freshman on a July tempo run tells her coach she's fine, she just needs to get used to the heat. She wasn't fine, and she'd just turned a physics problem into a story about being out of shape. With a dangerous heat dome sitting over much of the country this week, Coach Saltmarsh breaks down how to train through summer heat without wrecking the fall season: why sweat only cools you when it evaporates, why dew point beats temperature and humidity as the number to watch, exactly how much to slow down, the hydration math nobody actually runs, and the safety line no workout is worth crossing. Two free tools in the show notes: the heat pace calculator and the rehydration calculator.

SHOW NOTES

Full guide: Running in the Heat, pace adjustments and safety limits https://coachsaltmarsh.com/running-in-heat-guide/

The complete heat guide for coaches (physiology, acclimatization, decision charts) https://coachsaltmarsh.com/running-in-the-heat-how-to-avoid-heat-stress-and-stay-safe/

Heat & Humidity Pace Calculator (free): https://coachsaltmarsh.com/running-heat-calculator/

Rehydration Calculator (free): https://coachsaltmarsh.com/rehydration-calculator/

The 22-Week Season Blueprint: https://coachsaltmarsh.com/store-coach-saltmarsh/

This episode is training guidance, not medical advice. Suspected exertional heat stroke is a medical emergency. Cool the athlete aggressively and call 911.

A girl runs 13:21 at Van Cortlandt as a sophomore, and her coach's first thought is how to make sure she's still running in four years. That instinct is the whole story. In this first case-study episode, Coach Saltmarsh walks the full arc of Katelyn Tuohy's career, from seventh-grade national records to a pro contract, and pulls out the specific, stealable decisions two coaches made along the way: keeping your best runner in the group, taking the stopwatch away for a month every summer, training the finishing kick on purpose, and coaching the whole athlete instead of the training log. Protect first, develop second. Here's how to actually do it in your program.

SHOW NOTES

Full article: How Katelyn Tuohy Trained (the Diglio and Henes system)https://coachsaltmarsh.com/katelyn-tuohy-laurie-henes-nc-state-coaching-system/

Sleep Debt Calculator: https://coachsaltmarsh.com/runner-sleep-debt-calculator/

Zone 2 and the burnout problem: https://coachsaltmarsh.com/zone-2-training-for-high-school-runners-solving-the-4-year-burnout-crisis/

Coaching female distance runners: https://coachsaltmarsh.com/coaching-female-distance-runners/

The 22-Week Season Blueprint: https://coachsaltmarsh.com/store-coach-saltmarsh/

Episode 3 — How Josh Kerr Broke the Mile World Record on 70 Miles a Week

3:42.66. The first human under 3:43. A 27-year-old record, gone.

And Josh Kerr did it on 65 to 70 miles a week, six days out of seven, with two workouts, no double days, and no lactate meter anywhere in sight. Coach Jason Saltmarsh breaks down the training system behind the mile world record, and what it actually teaches high school coaches.

You'll hear why consistency, not volume, is the real training plan, why Danny Mackey caps Kerr's week for repeatability instead of show, why a 1500m runner should train like a 5K runner (and the physiology that proves it), how Mackey extended a proven benchmark workout instead of replacing it, and why 12 hours of daily rest matters more than any workout on the schedule.

Go deeper at coachsaltmarsh.com - the full Josh Kerr training breakdown, splits, workouts, and all.

New episodes weekly. Science-based training for high school distance coaches.

The number is the wrong question. Here's the right one.

Coach Jason Saltmarsh answers the single most-asked question in high school distance coaching, and explains why volume rarely breaks freshmen, intensity does. You'll learn why running age matters more than the birth certificate, the three freshman archetypes that all need different plans, why strides are mandatory and not optional, and how to build mileage with step cycles instead of the outdated 10% rule.

If you've ever capped a freshman out of fear and wondered why they never developed, this one's for you.

Go deeper at coachsaltmarsh.com - the full freshman mileage guide, the step-cycle progression charts, and a calculator that does the math for your season.

New episodes weekly. Science-based training for high school distance coaches.

The hardware isn't the point. The process is.

In the first episode of Salty Talks, Coach Jason Saltmarsh opens up about the moment at Derryfield Park that changed how he coaches, and why 31 state championships came from everything around the workout, not the workout itself.

You'll hear why the perfect Tuesday session is maybe 20% of your season, what Joe Vigil's Adams State dynasty actually teaches high school coaches, and the three things that separate programs that win once from programs that win for decades: periodization you commit to, individual attention inside a team structure, and sustainable excellence over a single good year.

Go deeper at coachsaltmarsh.com — the Vigil breakdown, the periodization guide, all free.

New episodes weekly. Science-based training for high school distance coaches.