Pace Calculator Find your pace, time, or distance
Enter a time and a distance to see your pace per kilometer and per mile.
Enter any two of time, distance, and pace, and the calculator fills in the third. You'll get pace per kilometer and per mile, speed in km/h and mph, projected finish times for 5K, 10K, half marathon, and marathon, or the distance a set pace and time would cover.
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.
Because the tool solves for any one of the three, you can also work backwards. Leave the pace blank to find the pace a time and distance imply, leave the time blank to find how long a distance will take at a goal pace, or leave the distance blank to find how far a set pace and time would carry you. That last mode is handy for training: if your plan says 45 minutes at 5:30 per kilometer, the calculator tells you that is about 8.18 kilometers of road.
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, so a 5:00/km pace becomes about 8:03/mi. This tool always shows both units at once.
Common Race Paces
A quick way to build pace intuition 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), the distances set by World Athletics, across a range of round-number paces. Notice how one minute per kilometer barely moves a 5K but adds more than twenty minutes to a marathon, so small pace changes compound over long distances.
| Pace per km | Pace per mile | 5K | 10K | Half Marathon | Marathon |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4:00 | 6:26 | 20:00 | 40:00 | 1:24:23 | 2:48:47 |
| 4:30 | 7:15 | 22:30 | 45:00 | 1:34:56 | 3:09:53 |
| 5:00 | 8:03 | 25:00 | 50:00 | 1:45:29 | 3:30:59 |
| 5:30 | 8:51 | 27:30 | 55:00 | 1:56:02 | 3:52:04 |
| 6:00 | 9:39 | 30:00 | 1:00:00 | 2:06:35 | 4:13:10 |
| 6:30 | 10:28 | 32:30 | 1:05:00 | 2:17:08 | 4:34:16 |
| 7:00 | 11:16 | 35:00 | 1:10:00 | 2:27:41 | 4:55:22 |
| 7:30 | 12:04 | 37:30 | 1:15:00 | 2:38:14 | 5:16:28 |
| 8:00 | 12:52 | 40:00 | 1:20:00 | 2:48:47 | 5:37:34 |
These projections assume you hold the same pace the whole way. Most runners slow over the final miles of a marathon, so treat the longer finish times as a best case unless your training supports them.
If you are working back from a goal finish time instead of a pace, our dedicated charts list the exact pace and splits for every target time. The marathon pace chart runs from a sub-2:00 finish, the territory Sabastian Sawe entered with the first sub-two-hour marathon run in race conditions at London in 2026, down to the 8:00 hour cut-off used by big-city marathons. The half marathon pace chart spans 1:00:00 to 4:00:00 on the same basis.
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. Running 5 kilometers in 30 minutes is 30 ÷ 5 = 6:00 per kilometer. The calculator does the division for you and shows the result per kilometer and per mile at once, along with your speed.
Enter your pace and your time, then leave the distance field blank, and the calculator returns how far you would cover. For example, holding 5:30 per kilometer for 45 minutes works out to about 8.18 kilometers (5.08 miles). This is the quickest way to plan how far a timed training run should take you.
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.
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. Runners usually talk in pace, while treadmills and cyclists usually use speed.
It depends on experience. Many beginners finish a 5K between 35 and 45 minutes, 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 means holding under 4:00 per kilometer. Any pace that lets you finish feeling strong is a good pace.
A comfortable beginner pace is often somewhere between 11:00 and 14:00 per mile, slow enough to hold a conversation while you run. Focus on finishing your runs feeling steady rather than fast, and your pace per mile will come down naturally as your fitness builds.
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, which is roughly 10.5 km/h (6.6 mph). Aim slightly faster, around 5:35 per kilometer, to build in a buffer for water stops and crowding.
A half marathon is 21.0975 km (13.1 miles), so finishing under 2 hours means averaging about 5:41 per kilometer, or 9:09 per mile. Target a touch quicker, around 5:35 per kilometer, so a slow mile or a busy water station does not cost you the goal.
The projections assume you hold the same pace from start to finish. Most runners slow over the final miles of a marathon, so treat the longer finish times as a best case unless your training supports them. Shorter distances like a 5K or 10K tend to track the projection more closely.
For most runners, even or negative splits produce the best result, meaning you run the second half at the same pace or slightly faster than the first. Starting a little conservatively and finishing strong almost always beats banking time early and fading late.