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/