1500m Horwill – 5-Pace System

About the plan

Twelve weeks on the five-pace system that Frank Horwill formulated in the 1970s and that became the backbone of British middle-distance running — Sebastian Coe ran on it. The premise: anyone competing at 1500 m does not train only at 1500 m pace, but at the five neighboring paces — 800 m, 1500 m, 3000 m, 5000 m and 10,000 m — separated from one another by about 4 seconds per 400 m. Each week touches two or three of these paces in a rotation that guarantees all five appear every two weeks, so that no speed band sits idle for long. The first four weeks lay the base with two paces per week; the middle four open up to three; the final three concentrate on race pace and 800 m speed, which is how Horwill sharpened his athletes. Moderate volume, high quality and lots of track: this is a middle-distance runner's plan, not a road runner's. How to read the paces: Horwill's system works with five speeds separated by about 4 seconds per 400 m lap, and the platform has four quality zones. The mapping used here is in the title of each session — the workout name says which of the five paces is the target, and the zone (@limiar, @intervalo, @repetição, @prova) is only the vehicle. Trust the title. This is a track plan for an advanced athlete: the proportion of quality workouts is deliberately high, because that is exactly what the five-pace method proposes.