Running Pace Calculator

How to use Running Pace Calculator

1. 1
   Enter the distance. In kilometres — 5, 10, 21.0975 or 42.195 for the standard races.
2. 2
   Enter your time. Hours, minutes and seconds.
3. 3
   Read across. Pace per kilometre and mile, speed, and equivalent finish times.

About calculating running pace

Pace is the unit runners actually think in, because it is the number on the watch and the number that has to be held. It is the inverse of speed, which is why the two feel different to reason about: shaving thirty seconds off a five-minute kilometre is a much larger improvement than shaving thirty seconds off a seven-minute one, even though the saving looks identical. The race projections here are deliberately simple — they assume the same pace over any distance — and that assumption is the main thing to be careful about. Endurance falls off as distance grows, and the widely used Riegel formula models this by adding about six percent to pace for each doubling of distance. In practice a runner who covers 5K at 5:00 per kilometre will not run a marathon at that pace; something closer to 5:30 or 5:45 is realistic, and going out at 5K pace is the classic way to blow up at thirty kilometres. Course, terrain and heat all move the figure further. Treat the equivalent times shown here as the ceiling of what the current fitness supports rather than as a plan, and note that marathon distance is 42.195 kilometres exactly — using 42 understates the time by nearly a minute at most paces.

Frequently asked questions