Salty Talks

The XC Workouts That Build a Championship Engine

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, a

The Pre-Race Warmup That Actually Matters

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

The Speed Reserve Nobody Talks About

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

Coaching Female Runners: RED-S and What Coaches Miss

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 d

The 4-Year Burnout Crisis

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

Coaching Middle School XC

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 va

Running in the Heat Without Wrecking the Season

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 a

How Katelyn Tuohy Trained

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.

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

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

How Many Miles Should a Freshman Run?

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 v

31 State Champions: What Actually Works

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