Pace Chart

A pace chart converts a finish time into the pace per kilometre or per mile it needs, and back again. At 5:00 per km you run a 25:00 5K, a 50:00 10K, a 1:45:29 half and a 3:30:59 marathon. The table below does that for the paces most runners train at, and the four charts linked from this page break each race into splits at every marker.

Pace chart: one pace, four distances

Read down the pace column to the one you can hold and across to what it produces. Each finish time assumes even pacing on a certified course, so 21.0975 km for the half and 42.195 km for the marathon.

Nobody holds their 5K pace for a marathon. Read each column on its own: the row you race a 5K from and the row you race a marathon from are three or four rows apart for most trained runners, and the gap between them is a rough measure of endurance against speed.

The four race charts

Each one lists the goal times for that distance, the pace per km and per mile, and the clock at each marker on the way round, with a calculator that rebuilds the full 25-row band around whatever time you type.

• Marathon pace chart: 2:45 to 6:00, splits at 10K, half and 30K.
• Half marathon pace chart: 1:20 to 3:00, splits at 5K, 10K and 15K.
• 10K pace chart: 35 to 70 minutes, splits at 2K, 5K and 8K.
• 5K pace chart: 16 to 35 minutes, the clock at every kilometre.

The widget on this page is set to the marathon. Change the race in the dropdown and it becomes any of the four.

How to read a pace chart

Pace is time divided by distance. That is the whole formula. The reason a chart beats a calculator on race morning is the split columns: instead of one number you carry a list of what the clock should say at each marker, so the check at 10K or 15 km is a glance, not division on tired legs.

Two habits make the chart work. Read the split at the course marker, not from the watch's lap pace, because GPS runs long on every course and the watch will say you are slower than you are. And pick the row before the taper, not on the start line.

Even splits are a model, not a plan

Every pace chart on the internet, this one included, assumes you run each kilometre at the same speed. Real races do not go that way. Most finishers in most fields slow in the last quarter, and the size of the fade grows with the distance: a few seconds per km in a 5K, 20 to 60 seconds total in a 10K, a minute or more in a half, and 5 to 15 minutes in a marathon for the middle of the field. The fast opening kilometre is where all of it starts.

A sensible plan is a small negative split that shrinks as the race gets shorter. One to two percent for the marathon, with halfway a minute or so slower than half your goal time. Up to one percent for the half. Even through 8K then faster for the 10K. Near even for the 5K with the first kilometre 2 to 3 seconds slow and a kick from 600 metres. Each race chart explains the shape for its own distance, and the pace band calculator builds the split plan with the clock at every marker.

Hills, heat and wind move the number

The chart assumes a flat course, no wind, and roughly 10 to 15 °C. Heat slows most runners above that, and the longer the race the more it costs; the environmental pace calculator adjusts a goal pace for the forecast. Climbing costs more than descending gives back, and a hilly course is best run by grade adjusted pace with the raw number left to float. A headwind takes more than a tailwind returns. Indoors, chart pace on a treadmill needs 1 percent incline, and the treadmill pace calculator does the conversion.

Picking the row

The chart cannot tell you which row is yours. A recent race can. Put it into the race time predictor for a projected time at the distance you are training for, and look up the VDOT it implies for the training paces that go with it. If the projection is slower than the row you want, the gap is the training plan. The age grade calculator puts any finish time against the world standard for your age and sex, which is the honest way to compare a 45 minute 10K at 25 with one at 60.

How Movement Rebels fits

A chart is a table. The coach in Movement Rebels reads the runs. Connect Garmin Connect or Apple Health and every activity arrives with pace, cadence and per-kilometre splits, so the coach can see whether you held the row you picked through the last quarter of a long run, and it can tell you when the data says a different row.

It plans the block in your calendar, and when auto push is on the planned sessions land on your Garmin watch as structured workouts with the pace targets loaded. It cannot read a chart for you or pace the race. It can show you, from the splits, which row you have earned.

If the row is a marathon row, fuelling decides whether you hold it past 30 km. Start with How to Fuel a Marathon.

Marathon 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.

Marathon distance 42.195 km. Rows step by 5 minutes.

The same chart in miles

Same finish times, splits at mile markers.

Questions

More pacing & performance tools