The GLRR Pacing Page

Want to know how fast you should run?  You came to the right place...

This is the pacing page where you can find the pace you should run for your track and training workouts based on your race pace or goals.  You will also find out how to breakdown your pace into 100, 200, 400, 800 meters, etc.  You will also find the Lexington Track pacing charts and a tool to predict your goal time based on the recent race efforts.

Let's get started...

We start with how to find your pace for workouts.

What is your recent 5K race time - or goal time?  Use that to pick a page below:

                                                17:00    17:30    18:00    18:30    19:00    19:30   
20:00    20:30    21:00    21:30    22:00    22:30    23:00    23:30    24:00    24:30   
25:00    25:30    26:00    26:30    27:00    27:30    28:00    28:30    29:00     

The times listed are 5K (3.1 mile) times because that is the most common race distance these days.  If you have a difference distance in mind - browse through the pages - other paces are also listed - and you'll quickly get the hang of it.

Now that we have your 5K pace - we can look up your pace for various workouts.  Let's say you're an 8 minute per mile 5K runner - so your 5K time is about 25:00 - so open that pace chart.

On the middle left we see that your recovery jog time should be about 11:00 - I'll bet you've been going faster than that, but to maximize your WO try to slow down on the recoveries.  We see your long runs should be about 10:30 (you're still going too fast I bet) and your easy runs (shorter) should be about 10:00.

How about your normal runs?  (The middle/lower left) Try to keep to a pace of 8:50 to 9:05.  Get in some tempo work at 8:28 to 8:50 and get your intervals to about 8:30 pace.

OK - we are ready for track... Jim says we are doing 8x400 today - what pace are you aiming for?  The middle right shows you should be trying to hit about 1:49 per 400 (one standard track lap).  Don't run faster (at the start) and don't run slower (at the end).  The goal is to run the entire WO at 1:49 per lap.  If we are pushing it - into sprinting - then we'd use the lower right - and drop our 400s to 1:45.

That's about it... these charts should have all you need.

But if you want to skip right to pace - you can use this chart which simply breaks down the common race distances into standard track paces: Standard Pace Chart

If you are at the Lexington Indoor Track - you know that we don't have a standard track - so pacing it a bit more complicated.  That track is just over 11 laps to a mile.  This chart breaks that down: Lexington Pace Chart.  Let's say you are to run 400s at 1:49.  Use the chart to find the closest 400 time.  The closest one is 1:50 (on the bottom half).  Scan up to the first line of that half - and we see the per lap pace should be 40s.

BTW- here is a trick for Lexington - since the laps are so short - you only need to track the last digit of the time.  So in this example you'd want to pass the start line on the 0s mark each time.  If the goal was 37s - you'd want to hit the start line 3s less each time.  By only focusing on the last digit and the start line you can run very consistent pace at Lexington.

The last bit of help here is predicting your time at various race distances - let's say you just ran a 22:30 5K and you want to set a goal for a 10 Miler - use this Pace Prediction Tool to find out.  In this case you'd be looking to run 1:18:37.