Running Pace Calculator: Learn Your Pace, Distance, or Time

Using a pace calculator can help you determine how long it will take you to walk or run a certain distance. Comparing this number over time can help you track your performance and see if your fitness efforts are paying off.

You may also need to know your pace when registering for an event or race such as a 5K, 10K, half marathon or marathon. You can use our pace and distance calculator or do the math yourself.

Your pace is expressed in minutes per mile or minutes per kilometer. This is the time it would take you to walk or run 1 mile or 1 kilometer. Race organizers use your pace to assign you to a start corral with others who will be racing at a similar pace. Note that many running races have a time limit equal to a 16-minutes-per-mile pace.

To calculate your pace, you will need to know the distance you have walked or run and the time it took you to do so.

A pace may not be a round number of minutes, in which case you will need to convert fractions of a minute to seconds. Multiply the fraction of a minute by 60. For example, 0.5 minutes = 30 seconds.

Speed is the flip side of pace. It is the calculation of distance over time, expressed in miles per hour or kilometers per hour. To calculate your speed, you will need to know the distance you walked or ran and the time it took you to do so.

Or, if you have your pace, you can convert it to speed. Simply divide 60 by your pace.

When you aren't using whole hours in the calculation, convert the number to minutes, then multiply the result by 60 minutes per hour to get miles per hour or kilometers per hour.

Sample speed calculations:

• Running 6 miles in 1 hour: 6 / 1 = 6 miles per hour (mph)
• Walking 6 miles in 2 hours: 6 / 2 = 3 mph
• Running a half marathon (13.1 miles) in 1.5 hours (90 minutes): 13.1 / 90 = .1455 x 60 = 8.73 miles per hour.

You can use speed or pace to gauge the intensity of your exercise. For example, walking intensity-levels may look like this:

• Light intensity: Speed less than 3 mph or pace greater than 20 minutes per mile
• Moderate intensity: Speed between 3 and 4 mph or pace between 16 and 20 minutes per mile
• Medium intensity: Speed 4 to 5 mph or pace between 12 and 15 minutes per mile
• Vigorous intensity: Speed over 5 mph or pace over 12 minutes per mile

A more individualized measure of intensity is the rated perceived exertion (RPE) scale. RPE uses a scale from 0 to 10, with lower numbers being less intense and higher numbers being very intense.

For example, an RPE of 0 is akin to sitting in a chair, 1 is very light exercise, 2 is light, 3 is moderate, 4 is somewhat heavy, 5 is heavy, 7 is very heavy, and 10 is very, very heavy. A 10 is how you feel at the end of a stress test or very vigorous activity.

When rating your exertion level, include feelings of shortness of breath and how tired you feel in your legs and overall. Most people aim to exercise at a level 3 or 4.

A pace calculator can be a good check on what your GPS fitness app or GPS fitness speedometer is showing as your speed or pace. These can be inaccurate, and you don't want to think you are faster than you actually are.

A common factor that contributes to inaccuracy is being in an area with buildings, trees, or hills that block the satellite signal that is used to measure your position. It's a good idea to check any device by measuring your walking or running speed over a known distance using a timer.

If you know your pace or your speed and how much time you will be walking or running, you can calculate how far you should go in that time. This can be useful if you have a set amount of time for a workout and want to see how far you could go. Sometimes you will need to convert distances, in which case it is useful to know that a kilometer is 0.62 miles and a mile is 1.61 kilometers.

Knowing how long it will take you to finish is important to know before you register for a race. Walkers and slow runners must be sure they can finish in under the course time cutoff. You may also want to compare your finish time with lists of winners to see if you might qualify for a trophy for your age group.

To calculate your finish time, you will need to know your pace in minutes per mile or minutes per kilometer (or your speed in miles per hour or kilometers per hour) and the distance of the course.

Be sure you are checking your pace in more than one way, as a GPS-based speed may be inaccurate. Doing a timed mile or a timed kilometer can be a better way to find an accurate pace. Otherwise, your finish time will also be inaccurate.

While you may be able to time yourself over a mile or kilometer and use that to predict your time for a 5K or 10K race, you probably won't be able to maintain the same speed over a half marathon or marathon. Ways to predict your finish time vary.

One method suggested by Dr. John Robinson is to add 20 seconds to your mile each time you double your distance. For example, if you've finished a half marathon, find your average minutes per mile and add 20 seconds to that. To find your finish time for a marathon, you would then multiply your minutes per mile pace by 26.2 miles. Marathon coach Hal Higdon suggests multiplying your 10 kilometer finish time by 5 to find your marathon finish time.

If you aren't happy with the results of the pace calculator, you can learn how to walk faster by:

• Using better posture
• Improving your arm motion
• Rolling through each step from heel to toe with a strong push-off, or race-walking
• Trying a walk/run technique for longer races, alternating walking and running intervals

If you are a runner, you can learn to run faster by:

• Working on your stride turnover (how many steps per minute you take)
• Interval training
• Planning weekly tempo runs (running at a sustained, steady effort pace)
• Hill training
• Taking a rest day at least once a week to let your muscles repair themselves