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/