5K Pace Chart

A 25 minute 5K is 5:00 per kilometre, 8:03 per mile. A 20 minute 5K is 4:00 and 6:26, and a 30 is 6:00 and 9:39. The chart below lists the goal times most runners chase, with the clock at 1K, 3K and 4K, and the calculator above rebuilds the full band around any time you type.

5K pace chart: common goal times

Find your goal on the left. The pace columns are the average from the start to the line. The split columns are what the clock should read at each kilometre if you run them all the same.

The full chart under the text steps every 30 seconds with a column for each kilometre, and the mile version marks 1, 2 and 3 miles. Type 23:40 and the widget highlights the nearest row, 23:30, while the headline pace comes from the time you typed.

How to read it

Pace per km for a 5K is the finish time divided by five, which most runners can do in their head, so the chart earns its place with the mile column and the kilometre splits. A 5K is the distance where the first split matters most. There are only five of them.

The mile column is worth a look even if you think in kilometres. A lot of the 5K advice online is written in minutes per mile, and 8:03 for a 25 minute 5K, or 6:26 for a 20, is the translation.

Even splits are a model, not a plan

The rows assume five identical kilometres. What happens in a real 5K, parkrun or a road race, is a first kilometre 15 to 20 seconds too fast because everyone around you is doing the same, a third and fourth kilometre where the pace drifts and the breathing goes ragged, and a final 400 metres faster than anything before it because the finish is visible. The result is a positive split with a kick on the end, and a finish time 30 to 60 seconds slower than the chart said the first kilometre was worth.

The last quarter of a 5K is 3.75 km to the line, and the pain there is the same whether you started right or wrong. Starting right means you can hold pace through it. Starting 15 seconds fast means kilometre 4 is 15 to 20 seconds slow and no kick recovers that.

A sensible plan is close to even, with the first kilometre 2 to 3 seconds slower than chart pace, kilometres 2 to 4 on the chart, and everything left in the last 600 metres. For a 25 minute goal that is 5:03 for the first, 5:00 through 4K, and under 4:50 to the line. Faster runners run the same shape, closer to the line. The pace band calculator prints the clock for each kilometre with whatever swing you choose.

Hills, heat and wind move the number

The chart is a flat course on a calm day around 10 to 15 °C. Five kilometres is short enough that heat costs less than at longer distances, but a hot morning still takes 10 to 30 seconds from most of the field, and the environmental pace calculator puts a number on it. Hills hurt more here than anywhere, because there is no flat stretch long enough to get the seconds back; run a hilly course by grade adjusted pace and judge the day on effort. Wind on an exposed loop takes more going into it than it returns. For treadmill 5Ks at chart pace, set 1 percent and use the treadmill pace calculator.

Picking a goal time

The cleanest test is a recent 5K. Failing that, feed a 10K into the race time predictor and it will project a 5K, usually a little conservative for runners with speed and a little generous for runners with only endurance. Compare the projection with the row you want. If they match, race it. If the row is two rows faster, the interval sessions have work to do first. Your VDOT from the same race gives the interval and repetition paces that move a 5K.

How Movement Rebels fits

A 5K is short enough that a single kilometre decides it, and the coach in Movement Rebels can see that kilometre. Connect Garmin Connect or Apple Health and every run arrives with pace, cadence and per-kilometre splits, so after a parkrun it can tell you that the first kilometre was 4:41 against a 5:00 plan and that the fourth was 5:19, and it will say so in the debrief.

It plans the 5K block in your calendar, the intervals, the strides and the easy days, and when auto push is on the planned sessions land on your Garmin watch as structured workouts with the targets from this chart loaded. It cannot read the chart for you. It can show you, over the weeks, whether the row you picked is the row your intervals support.

The sessions are in 5K and 10K Training.

Other pace charts

The 10K pace chart is the next step up, and the half marathon pace chart and marathon pace chart follow. The pace chart hub shows one pace against all four distances on a single table. For what your 5K is worth against the world standard for your age, use the age grade calculator.

5 km pace chart: finish time to pace and splits

Find your goal time in the left column and read across. Pace is per kilometre, the rest are the clock readings at each marker on even pacing.

5 km distance 5 km. Rows step by 30 seconds.

The same chart in miles

Same finish times, splits at mile markers.

Questions

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