Training pace calculator

Turn a recent race into the paces for your training: easy runs, long runs, steady runs, threshold sessions, fast repetitions and the jog in between. Each range comes from one estimate of your threshold pace.

How the calculator works

First it estimates your threshold pace: roughly the fastest pace you could hold for about an hour. It takes your race and asks how far that result suggests you could run in 60 minutes, using the same Riegel-style formula as our race time calculator, with an exponent of 1.06. The threshold pace is 60 minutes divided by that distance.

A 40:00 10K suggests about 14.66 kilometres in an hour, a threshold pace of 4:06 per kilometre. A race of exactly one hour, such as 15 km in 60:00, needs no projection: its own pace, 4:00 per kilometre, is the threshold.

Every training range is then a fixed number of seconds per kilometre added to that threshold. These are the offsets coach steve uses when it writes running plans. With a threshold of 4:38 per kilometre they give easy running at 5:50–6:20, long runs at 5:40–6:05, steady running at 5:15–5:30, threshold work at 4:38–4:45, repetitions at 3:55–4:10 and the recovery jog at 6:15–6:45.

Which result to use

Use a recent race or a hard, timed effort on a flat course. An easy training run will make every range too slow. A 10K or a half marathon gives the steadiest estimate; coach steve itself only uses races of 10 kilometres or longer for this. A 5K works, but treat the ranges as a rougher guide, because a short race says less about the pace you can hold for an hour.

What about marathon pace?

The page shows an estimated marathon pace from the same result, using the race time formula. Treat it with care. In a study of recreational runners, Vickers and Vertosick found the Riegel model predicted marathon times that were too fast. Read the study and its methods. Marathon pace is better set from your goal and checked against your long runs.

What the ranges are and are not

The ranges are a starting point. They are a coaching convention, not a laboratory measurement, and every one moves with the threshold estimate. Heat, hills, wind and fatigue all change what a pace costs; on those days run by effort. If you train by heart rate, the heart rate zone calculator gives the matching bands.

From paces to a week

Knowing your paces does not tell you how many of each run to do. We make coach steve, an AI running coach you can text, designed to build a plan around your goal, history and the days you can run.

Common questions

Is this the same as VDOT?

No. VDOT tables come from a different method. This calculator estimates one threshold pace and sets every range from it, the way coach steve's plans do.

How often should I update my paces?

When you have a new race or hard effort that shows a real change, not after every run. Small changes in the estimate are within its error.

Where is my result saved?

Nowhere. The calculator keeps it in the page while it is open.