Pace Calculator

Distance, time and pace are one equation

Pace is time divided by distance. Know any two of the three and the third follows. A 55:00 10K works out to 8:51 per mile, because 10 kilometers is 6.214 miles and 55 minutes spread over that distance gives just under nine minutes for each one.

Speed is the same idea turned around: distance per hour instead of time per mile. Divide 60 by your pace in minutes and you get mph, so 8:51 per mile is about 6.78 mph. Treadmills display speed, which is why a treadmill pace chart helps when you switch between the belt and the road.

Same pace, longer race: what the extra lines mean

The lines under the result hold your pace fixed and stretch it to other races. At 8:51 per mile, a half marathon would take 1:56:02 and a marathon 3:52:04. That is plain math, not a forecast. Few people can hold their 10K pace for two or four times as long.

To estimate what you could really run over a longer race, use the race time predictor, which slows the pace as the distance grows. Use this page when you want a goal time turned into a pace you can check on every mile.

Why your GPS watch disagrees with the course

Many runners finish a race and see a longer distance on the watch than on the race sign. Part of that is the device. A GPS watch samples your position every few seconds and connects the dots, so tall buildings, trees and tight turns can push the track off line.

The other part is you. Road races are measured along the shortest path a runner could take, hugging every corner. Weaving around people, running wide on bends and crossing the road to a water table all add real distance the course never counted.

When the watch reads long, the pace it shows looks faster than your official pace. For race results, trust the clock and the official distance. For training runs, small errors tend to even out over weeks of data.

Typing times and choosing the right clock

Enter times as hours, minutes and seconds with colons, such as 1:52:30 for a half marathon or 27:15 for a 5K. A single number is read as minutes.

• Chip time runs from the start mat to the finish mat and is the best number for pace.
• Gun time includes the wait to reach the start line, so it makes your pace look slower.
• For a run on a 400 m track, count laps and pick the distance that matches.

Reading the pace table

The table lists finish times for whole-minute paces from 6:00 to 15:00 per mile. Follow the 10:00 row and you get a 31:04 5K and a 4:22:11 marathon. It is a fast way to see which pace band your goal falls into.

Prefer kilometers? The km to mile pace converter switches between the two units and has its own chart.

Related pages

Treadmill Pace Chart, Marathon Pace Chart, Half Marathon Pace Chart, 5K Pace Chart, 10K Pace Chart