Jack texted me before he’d even arrived home that night. He’d just gotten off the bus from the New England Track and Field Championships and asked me if he should run 45 or 50 miles the next week. He had just run the 4×800 and the 800 against some of the best runners in the...

The post The Crucial Two Weeks: Post-Track Season Recovery for HS Distance Runners appeared first on Coach Saltmarsh - Elite Middle Distance and Cross Country Resources for High School Coaches

The first time I ran a cross country preseason meeting, I read from a clipboard for forty minutes. I covered everything. The schedule. The mileage chart. The dress code. The rules about earbuds on team runs. I explained the difference between a tempo run and a threshold workout while a sophomore in the back row...

The post The Ultimate Preseason Cross Country Meeting Agenda for Coaches appeared first on Coach Saltmarsh - Elite Middle Distance and Cross Country Resources for High School Coaches

I’ve been coaching high school cross country and track for over two decades. Many of them are still running. Some of them aren’t. I’ve come to believe that the difference between those two outcomes has far less to do with talent, mileage, or training principles than most coaches want to admit. It has to do...

The post What Mary Cain’s Story Teaches Us About Coaching Girls: A Guide for High School Cross Country Coaches appeared first on Coach Saltmarsh - Elite Middle Distance and Cross Country Resources for High School Coaches

There are 22 events on a high school track meet program. Most of them are individual. Two of them, one to open the meet and one to close it, pull the bleachers to their feet. There is a reason for that, and it is not an accident of scheduling. 3 Key Takeaways Why the 4×800...

The post The 4x800m and 4x400m Relays: Strategy, Order, and the Coaching Decisions That Win Championships appeared first on Coach Saltmarsh - Elite Middle Distance and Cross Country Resources for High School Coaches

She found me in the parking lot before the second week of August practice, fourteen years old and already crying. She’d been the top runner on her middle school team since 6th grade. Middle school champion four months earlier. Her middle school team had practiced three days a week, twenty-minute runs on the grass fields...

The post Middle School to High School Cross Country: A Coach’s Guide to the Hardest Transition in Youth Running appeared first on Coach Saltmarsh - Elite Middle Distance and Cross Country Resources for High School Coaches

It’s the second week of May and you’ve got a decision that’s been keeping you up for several nights. Your best runner, the kid who’s been building since September, who ran 4:23 in the mile and 9:18 in the two-mile, can score points in both the 1600 and the 3200. Your team is sitting on...

The post The 1600m/3200m Double: A Science-Based Guide for High School Track Coaches appeared first on Coach Saltmarsh - Elite Middle Distance and Cross Country Resources for High School Coaches