Pace Calculator — Find Your Running Pace
This pace calculator turns any time and distance into your running pace per kilometer and per mile, plus your speed in km/h and mph. Enter your time and distance (or tap a race preset for 5K, 10K, half marathon, or marathon) and you'll also see projected finish times for every major race distance at the same pace.
Race presets
How Pace Is Calculated
Pace is simply time divided by distance. Run 5 kilometers in 30 minutes and your pace is 30 ÷ 5 = 6:00 per kilometer. The only fiddly part is the units: minutes have 60 seconds, not 100, so 5.5 minutes per kilometer is 5:30, not 5:50. The calculator handles that arithmetic for you, and if you first need to add up lap or segment times, our time calculator does the hours-minutes-seconds math.
Pace and speed describe the same effort from opposite directions. Pace is time per distance (minutes per kilometer or mile), which is what most runners and race plans use; speed is distance per time (km/h or mph), which is what treadmills and GPS watches often display. They are inverses: 6:00 per kilometer equals 10 km/h.
To convert pace per kilometer to pace per mile, multiply by 1.609, since a mile is 1.609 kilometers. A 5:00/km pace becomes about 8:03/mi, and going the other way you divide by 1.609. This tool always shows both, so you can talk pace with runners on either system.
Common Race Paces
A handy way to build intuition for pace is to see what a steady pace produces over the classic race distances. The table below shows finish times for a 5K (5 km), 10K (10 km), half marathon (21.0975 km), and marathon (42.195 km) at three round-number paces. Notice how a difference of just one minute per kilometer adds five minutes to a 5K but more than forty minutes to a marathon — small pace changes compound over long distances.
| Pace per km | Pace per mile | 5K | 10K | Half Marathon | Marathon |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5:00 | 8:03 | 25:00 | 50:00 | 1:45:29 | 3:30:59 |
| 6:00 | 9:39 | 30:00 | 1:00:00 | 2:06:35 | 4:13:10 |
| 7:00 | 11:16 | 35:00 | 1:10:00 | 2:27:41 | 4:55:22 |
Bear in mind that the projected times assume you hold the same pace from start to finish. Over a marathon most runners slow in the late miles, so treat the longer projections as a best case unless your training supports them.
Using Pace in Training
Most training plans are built around a handful of paces rather than one. Easy runs, which should make up the bulk of your weekly mileage, are typically 60 to 90 seconds per kilometer slower than race pace — slow enough to hold a conversation. Tempo runs sit at a "comfortably hard" effort near your one-hour race pace, and intervals are short repeats run faster than race pace with recovery between them.
This is why marathoners deliberately train slower than their goal pace most of the week: easy mileage builds the aerobic engine without the injury risk of constant hard running, while a few targeted sessions at marathon pace teach the body what race day feels like. On race day itself, aim for even or negative splits — running the second half at the same pace or slightly faster than the first. Starting a touch conservatively and finishing strong almost always beats banking time early and fading late. Use the calculator above to pin down each training pace from a recent race result.
Frequently Asked Questions
Divide your total time by your distance: pace = time ÷ distance. For example, running 5 kilometers in 30 minutes is 30 ÷ 5 = 6:00 per kilometer. The calculator above does the division for you and shows the result per kilometer and per mile at the same time, along with your speed.
It depends on experience. Many beginners finish a 5K between 35 and 45 minutes, which is roughly 7:00 to 9:00 per kilometer. Regular runners often land between 25 and 32 minutes (about 5:00 to 6:30 per kilometer), while breaking 20 minutes requires holding under 4:00 per kilometer. Any pace that lets you finish feeling strong is a good pace.
Multiply your pace per kilometer by 1.609, since a mile is 1.609 kilometers. A 5:00 per kilometer pace works out to about 8:03 per mile, and 6:00 per kilometer is about 9:39 per mile. The calculator shows both units automatically, so you never have to convert by hand.
To finish a marathon (42.195 km / 26.2 miles) in 4 hours, you need to average about 5:41 per kilometer, or 9:09 per mile. That is roughly 10.5 km/h (6.6 mph). Build in a small buffer for water stops and crowding by aiming slightly faster, around 5:35 per kilometer.
Pace is time per distance (minutes per kilometer or mile), while speed is distance per time (km/h or mph). They are inverses of each other: a 6:00 per kilometer pace equals 10 km/h, and the faster you run, the lower your pace number but the higher your speed. Runners usually talk in pace; treadmills and cyclists usually use speed.