Chris Sauer

Cross Country and Distance at Fordham University

Writes about training & coaching on @Endurance_Exp

[Chris Sauer @ChrisSauerXC]

Year 7 of telling people how to run in a circle. A huge thank you to the athletes that make it look like I sometimes know what I'm doing
(@LIUCrossCountry)

[Metro Conference @MetroConfSports]

Week 4️⃣ Metro Cross Country Male Performer of the Week! 👏

@IonaXCTF's Ollie Boltz

➡️ Crossed the finish line in 23:45 in a highly competitive men's 8k field!

🔗 https://t.co/4eJWkz77Rn

[Metro Conference @MetroConfSports]

Week 4️⃣ Metro Cross Country Female Rookie of the Week!

@IonaXCTF's Alex Schulz

➡️ Iona's second finisher with a time of 21:14.7 in the women's 6k race!

🔗 https://t.co/4eJWkz6A1P

[Metro Conference @MetroConfSports]

Week 4️⃣ Metro Cross Country Male Rookie of the Week! 🏃

@IonaXCTF's Reiss Marshall

➡️ Finished men's 8K with a time of 24:24.9!

🔗 https://t.co/4eJWkz6A1P

[Chris Sauer @ChrisSauerXC]

@boleroo @knowledgeiswatt I'd be the really short rest is a factor.

Sets of 13x(30"on/15"off) isn't a lot of time to return to baseline so you're getting effectively 45s per rep with elevated HR and your body still working hard. Even though it's 19.5' vs 20' of "work" it probably feels closer to 25-30'

[Chris Sauer @ChrisSauerXC]

The best recruiting service is a well written email

Good grades/times don't hurt either

[LaMonte Vaughn Jr. @KoachVaughn]

I did a little research

Some of these “recruiting sites” are charging anywhere from $300 to $3000) per year pending on the “service” they offer.

Do not waste your money.

1. Your performances and your grades will get attention

2. Be realistic about where your market value is or isn’t when it comes to your performances and grades.

3. Do your research. Look at what is making conference finals and scoring points. The bigger the profile the school has, look at the ncaa meet.

4. Do not assume anything. Just because a school doesn’t have a finalist doesn’t mean they are investing in that event or the people in that event.

5. T&F is a production game not just a potential game. Everyone has potential. Not everyone will do what it takes to produce.

6. It doesn’t matter how these sites present your videos and profiles, if your performances can’t help that school you’ve targeted, the probability is low they will invest in you. If your grades are bad, the probability drops lower.

7. Everything these sites say they do, you can do on your phone. You can send that same video you sent to the “service” to coaches along with your transcripts and your profile on https://t.co/puW0jiXxXP or https://t.co/8FZJmqoXgu

8. Email an AD or president is not going to get you an athletic scholarship if your performances/grades don’t help the program in the postseason (or at least within reason). Those entities are just going to send it to the HC for evaluation.

8. In most cases, no response is your answer about that school. You want attention, level up and make sure your grades are in order.

9. Some schools are still using standardized tests for academic aid. Coaches do not have any influence on money they don’t control.

10. I’ll say it again. T&F is NOT a back door to Football. I don’t know any T&F coach that is going to invest $$$ into an athlete that will not be at practice all fall, run indoors, disappear for spring ball, and come back the last few weeks of outdoor. You better be super elite for that conference for that to happen

11. Just like you don’t need to waste money on recruiting sites, DO NOT LISTEN TO THE STREET TEAM. Anyone promising your child or you a scholarship that is not within the coaching staff of that program, can not help you or represent any decisions made by the head coach. Go to the source.

12. Coaches are not trying to disrespect you. We are in the most honest sport. You may not like our delivery of the truth, but we will tell you the truth…in most cases. If your performances can help or at least within reason, you may have an opportunity.

The people that did get scholarships could have gotten them at those schools by doing the following:

Go to https://t.co/FvgAeD9D8T Look at the lists, look at the conference/national championship results, send updated transcripts, contact info, meet results, and meet videos to head coaches and assistant coaches. All that can be done on your phone or laptop for FAR less (also known as Free) than these sites are offering you.

Don’t try to butter us up, we read right past that yada yada. Get to the meat of it all. Ask good questions.

And for the Love of God

Don’t demand anything.

That’s all I have for you today. I just don’t want to see you get scammed.

[Chris Sauer @ChrisSauerXC]

@coachjayjohnson Same experience here. I was head cross at 23 and got to speed run so many mistakes that probably would have taken half my career to encounter if I started off in a less hands on role

(Also sorry to my first team for occasionally being an idiot)

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

The scariest finding in this paper: the subjects couldn't tell it was happening.

UPenn ran this study on 48 healthy adults. One group slept 8 hours. Another slept 6. Another slept 4. For 14 straight days. They tested cognitive performance every 2 hours from 7:30am to 11:30pm.

The 6-hour group's reaction times, working memory, and sustained attention deteriorated on a near-linear curve. By day 14 they were performing at the same level as someone who hadn't slept at all in 48 hours. The 4-hour group hit that threshold by day 6.

Here's the part that should unsettle everyone who thinks they "do fine" on 6 hours: the subjects' self-reported sleepiness flatlined after the first few days. Their brains kept getting worse. Their perception of how impaired they were stopped updating. The cognitive decline was invisible to the person experiencing it.

The researchers found a hard threshold. Any wakefulness beyond 15.84 hours in a day produces cumulative neurobiological cost. That cost compounds every single day you exceed it and does not reset with a weekend of sleeping in.

About 35% of American adults sleep less than 7 hours a night. 40% of those get 6 hours or less. In 1942 that number was 11%. We built an entire professional culture around a sleep schedule that this paper says is functionally equivalent to pulling consecutive all-nighters.

"I'm fine on 6 hours" is the most common response to sleep research. The first thing chronic sleep debt destroys is your ability to notice chronic sleep debt.

[Brendan Thompson, PT, DPT @BrendanThompsn]

Going to jump into this CIVIL speed vs capacity discourse… it feels right given Tony and I just presented at the same clinic on our systems.

I’ll start with our similarities, our differences, and why we can strongly disagree on the presence / absence of items in our respective systems while remaining friendly, respecting one another, and do so without tearing each other down.

@pntrack and I agree on the majority of what a sound system should be based around…
• Prioritizing speed
• Keeping kids healthy
• Building up elements that complement speed such as strength, plyos, jump, etc.
• Reinforcing a culture where athletes love to train, they trust you, they want to be coached by you, and everything adjacent to that

Where we disagree:
• I’m a fan of contextual tempo, fitness, “aerobic base”, etc as they pertain to various sprint events
• I send my sprinters further than 200m in practice periodically
• That’s pretty much it… though very passionate topics for both of us

Why we can co-exist, respect one another, and be friends:
• My system will have results that exist, no matter what Tony does or doesn’t believe in, disagree with, etc.
• Tony’s system will have results that exist, no matter what I do or don’t believe in, disagree with, etc.
• His success has no effect on my livelihood, nor does mine have any effect on his
• While we have a difference of opinion on certain things, we are adult enough to joke with one another about said differences

Once upon a time Tony and I didn’t speak for probably 2 years over our very public differences. We buried the hatchet and have spent tons of great, productive time on calls, presentations, zooms, and more comparing and contrasting our thoughts and ideas surrounding training.

While we may not see eye to eye on 100% of our coaching ideologies, I leave every single one of our interactions better, sharper, and more refined than I was before.

Tony deserves a lot of credit for the FTC movement, challenging the status quo, and standing up for athletes when some don’t even know (nor care) about their athletes’ all around wellbeing and desire to be in our sport of choice.

There are many ways to skin a cat… and that’s okay! As long as we are getting consistent, sustainable results… athletes want to be coached by you… want to be in your program… their needs are being prioritized over your ego… and all of the other things… at the end of the day… do what you’re going to do… and you can do it without having to tear someone else down.

“Blowing out someone else’s candle doesn’t make yours shine any brighter”

Be kind. Thanks for reading.

Have a great day⚡️

[Steven Montoya @steven_montoya]

I’m convinced that relationships have more to do with athlete success than any training plan could alone.

An athlete and coach need to have trust in one another, they need to communicate easily, and the coach has to support the athlete. And most importantly, the coach must authentically care and the athlete must know that without hesitation.

That’s the magic sauce. Kids will run through a wall for you when that’s the case.

The hardest part of that is giving that experience to 70 kids, not just 2 or 3.

[Chris Sauer @ChrisSauerXC]

@CoachDistance Back when over 50/week was "high mileage"

The dark times

[Endurance Explained @Endurance_Exp]

Two vs Three Workout Per Week running programs - Part 1

[Chris Beardsley @SandCResearch]

All of the extra elevations in muscle protein synthesis (MPS) rates that occur when using long rests happen in the first 24 hours. So creating a bigger hypertrophy stimulus doesn't make the stimulus period longer, it just makes the stimulus bigger in the first 24 hours.

[Chris Sauer @ChrisSauerXC]

@downgerd @JamOz1980 My post literally has the word "selling" in it

[Chris Sauer @ChrisSauerXC]

Running influencer ad: "I ran nearly 1,000 miles this year to crush my marathon goal..."

Ah the ol' 2.7 miles a day plan. Please, tell me where you'll be selling your services O Great Guru of the Gram

[Chris Sauer @ChrisSauerXC]

@J_Kyger4 @KhalDraco4 1,000 miles a year is great for fitness. I'd be impressed with most people doing that -- just not marathoners

[Chris Sauer @ChrisSauerXC]

@jamesonpenn Honestly, it was just an ad on Instagram. I wouldn't have even taken enough time to register who it was

[Chris Sauer @ChrisSauerXC]

My official stance on XC tie breakers:

If the top-5 runners from each team couldn't decide who was the better team, then I don't see why scoring the same top-5 but in a different way makes much sense

The 6th runner shows who has more depth and makes the full team matter more

[Chris Sauer @ChrisSauerXC]

The @IonaXCTF Men of Run get it done once again

[IonaGaelsXCTF @IonaXCTF]

🎟️👊

#GaelNation

[IonaGaelsXCTF @IonaXCTF]

It's here. NCAA Northeast Regional
📍Hopkinton Fairgrounds
📍Hopkinton, NH
🕐 Women's 6k
🕐 Men's 10k
📊 https://t.co/3RJzsI5nS1

[IonaGaelsXCTF @IonaXCTF]

3 Days until the @MAACSports Championship