1500m Training - How To Prepare

My daughter is ten years old and has to train for the 100m sprint and 1500m run. The race day is in about 2-3 weeks.

I know how to train her for 100m but not sure about 1,500m.

Please help!!!!

Answer by Dominique:





Hi there,
Thank you for your running training question.

I find it pretty scary to provide running advice to kids I do not know anything about.

I don't want to provide overly aggressive training advice as she might find herself injured and not able to compete.

Above all, in 2-3 weeks there is not a lot you can do to change somebody's stamina or speed, so the only thing I can do is to provide tactical advice, i.e. aimed at preparing to run the race cleverly.

The 1,500m is completely different from the 100m. 100m is all about speed, the 1,500m is a tough mix of endurance and speed.

In order to be better prepared for it, I would let her cover the 1,500m in training twice a week or so.

This will get her used to how long the distance is and will give you guys some opportunity to test how fast she should be running.

The first time do it at a really easy pace. You just want her to get used to how long it is. It is far for a ten-year-old. My daughter is the same age and sometimes she feels like a long-distance runner and I have taken her on little runs, but after 1k she is usually "cured"... :)

After the first time you can go a bit faster and experiment with how fast you should be going.

You don't want to go out at a break-necking pace and then to falter in the second half, but you don't want to go out too slow and find out at the end that you still have energy left over.

The best thing is to run it at fairly even speed. This will still be fast, so these will be quite tough training sessions and you should make sure she does not do these two days in a row.

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Keep at least two easier days in between. Also, watch out for any aches or pains, you don't want to get her injured.

I hope this helps a little.
Best of luck.
Kind regards,
Dominique