1500m Training: How to Structure Your Season

Structure is what makes or breaks training. The rhythm of the week, the month, the season. What days are hard, easy, lifting days, rest days. Patterns in training are what lay down the foundation for consistency in the sport.

Work backwards from your goal race

It is probably more mental than anything. Set your goal races and build your season and mindset backwards from there. If you don't know where you're going, how do you know you'll have enough gas to get there?

Look ahead to the end of the season and work backwards: threshold, speed development, the weight room and race specific work, in the right doses at the right time.

Follow the 85% rule

Training is not about going to the well every day. It's about controlled, submaximal work, stacked over weeks and months, that slowly builds the engine. The hard stuff has its place, but it's a small slice of the year. Most of the time you should be holding back on purpose.

I saw it in my own running and I see it now with my athletes. The ones who treat every workout like a test never quite get where they want to go. I PR'd every year in this sport for 20 years straight, and the 85% rule was one of the biggest reasons why.

A simple aerobic session I still love

Lane 8 tempos were a key workout from my former coach, Frank Gagliano. Start at the 400 meter line and run at a tempo or threshold effort in lane 8. Your recovery is the walk from the finish line back to the start. Adjust the walk shorter or longer based on how you feel. It works well for new runners, athletes returning from injury and middle distance runners.

Peaking

1. Use aerobic work to push or pull fitness. Don't fixate on hammering sessions to "peak." Adjust the aerobic work instead.
2. Don't take huge swings at random meets during the year. Simple, but often overdone, especially with high level athletes. Thoroughbreds race, horses plow fields.

Racing it

Nothing matters til 600m to go. Get to that point relaxed and in position, then race. More on that in my faster mile guide.

My 1500m and mile training plan follows this exact structure: 3 phases, 54 workouts, built backwards from your championship race. Want it built around your calendar? 1:1 coaching.

Written by Coach Travis Mahoney

3:57 miler · coach of 2 sub 4 milers · 4x US Olympic Trials qualifier

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