Pace Calculator

What is pace?

Pace is the time it takes you to run one kilometre. It is written as minutes and seconds per kilometre, for example 5:30 min/km. The lower the number, the faster you run.

Most runners end up knowing their pace very well. But at first it can feel a bit backwards if you are used to thinking in kilometres per hour.

How to use the pace calculator

The calculator works in every direction. Choose what you want to find and fill in the other two values:

• Pace: Enter distance and time to get your pace and speed.
• Time: Enter distance and pace to get your finish time. Handy when you want to know what a given pace means for your next race.
• Distance: Enter time and pace to see how far you get. Handy when you only have 45 minutes for a run.

Below the result you can see what the same pace gives you over 5K, 10K, 15K, 20K, half marathon and marathon.

How to calculate pace yourself

The formula is simple: divide your time by the distance.

Pace = time ÷ distance

If you run 10 km in 55 minutes, your pace is 55 ÷ 10 = 5.5 minutes per kilometre. Half a minute is 30 seconds, so your pace is 5:30 min/km.

The decimals are what trip people up. 5.5 minutes is not 5:50 but 5:30. That is exactly the kind of thing the calculator handles for you.

From pace to km/h and back again

Pace and speed say the same thing from opposite sides. Pace is time per distance. Speed is distance per time.

• Pace to km/h: 60 ÷ pace in minutes. A pace of 5:00 min/km is 60 ÷ 5 = 12 km/h.
• km/h to pace: 60 ÷ speed. 10 km/h is 60 ÷ 10 = 6 minutes, so 6:00 min/km.

This is especially useful on a treadmill, which often shows speed in km/h while your watch shows pace.

Why do runners use pace instead of km/h?

Mostly tradition. Before GPS watches, runners timed themselves over a known distance, like four laps of a 400-metre track. The time for that distance was your pace. When running watches arrived, runners kept thinking the same way so the numbers stayed comparable.

There are good reasons to stick with it, too:

• You get a better feel for how long a given distance will take.
• Most runs last less than an hour, so kilometres per hour makes less sense.
• It is easy to split a run into segments with a target pace for each kilometre.

What is a good pace?

It depends entirely on who you are and how far you run. As a rule of thumb:

• New runners are often between 7:00 and 9:00 min/km. That is completely fine.
• Recreational runners typically sit around 5:30 to 6:30 min/km on an ordinary run.
• Elite runners get below 3:00 min/km over short distances.

Your pace on an easy run should be noticeably slower than your race pace. The easy runs are what build your fitness.

How to get good at hitting a target pace

There is only one way: practice. At first it is hard to hold a steady pace because you are mostly busy keeping your legs going. But the more you run, the better you get at feeling the different paces.

A simple drill is to run 2 minutes at different paces with 2 minutes of walking in between:

1. 2 minutes at your marathon pace.
2. 2 minutes at your half marathon pace.
3. 2 minutes at your 10K pace.
4. 2 minutes at your 5K pace.

Afterwards, compare how each pace felt with what your watch says. Do it a few times and you will hit your target pace much more precisely.

The hard part is holding back

The hardest part of holding a steady pace is holding back at the start. Your legs are fresh, you have plenty of air, and suddenly you have spent too much energy too early.

That is why many runners aim for negative splits: running the second half faster than the first. You save a little energy early on and gradually pick up the pace. It takes control, but it pays off both physically and mentally.

Use the calculator to find the pace that gives you your target time. Then you know exactly what to hold from the start.