Running Pace Calculator

How It Works

Running pace is simply time divided by distance: how many minutes it takes you to cover one mile or one kilometre. Because a mile (1.609344 km) is longer than a kilometre, a pace in minutes per mile is always a bigger number than the same effort expressed in minutes per kilometre — roughly 1.61 times bigger. The calculator shows both, plus your speed in miles and kilometres per hour, so you can compare with training plans and race results in either system. The second tool runs the same maths backwards: multiply your target pace by the race distance to get a predicted finish time.

Worked Example

Run a 10K in 55 minutes and your pace is 55 ÷ 10 = 5:30 per kilometre. In miles, 10 km is 6.2137 miles, so the pace is 55 ÷ 6.2137 = 8.85 minutes per mile, or 8:51 per mile. Now flip it: hold a steady 9:00 per mile for a full marathon (26.2 miles) and the finish time is 26.2 × 9 = 235.8 minutes, which is 3 hours 55 minutes 48 seconds. A 5K in 25 minutes works out to 5:00 per kilometre and 8:03 per mile.

How to Use This Calculator

For pace, enter the distance and pick miles or kilometres, then enter your finish time in hours, minutes and seconds — the quick buttons fill in the standard race distances (5K, 10K, half marathon, marathon) for you. For a finish-time prediction, enter the pace you plan to hold, say whether it is per mile or per kilometre, and enter the race distance. Both results update live as you type, and Reset restores the example values.

Tips and Practical Advice

Remember that a predicted finish time assumes perfectly even pacing, which almost nobody achieves — most runners slow in the second half of a long race, so treat the prediction as a best case and add a few minutes for a first marathon. When you compare paces, compare like with like: a hilly 10K at 6:00 per kilometre may be a better performance than a flat one at 5:45. And use the per-kilometre figure for training plans written in metric and the per-mile figure for US race results — mixing the two up is the most common pace mistake, and it makes a 9-minute mile look like a 9-minute kilometre, which would be world-class.