Pace vs Speed
Understand time per distance and distance per hour, with a worked 5:00/km, 12 km/h example.
Two ways to describe the same movement
Pace tells you how much time corresponds to one unit of distance. Speed tells you how much distance corresponds to one unit of time. They describe the same distance-and-time relationship from opposite directions. A smaller time per kilometre is a faster pace; a larger number of kilometres per hour is a faster speed.
Work through 5:00 per kilometre
Five minutes is 300 seconds. There are twelve five-minute periods in an hour, so an even 5:00/km pace corresponds to 12 km/h. In the other direction, divide 60 minutes by 12 kilometres to recover 5 minutes per kilometre.
| Measure | Value | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Pace | 5:00/km | Five minutes for each kilometre |
| Speed | 12 km/h | Twelve kilometres in one hour |
| Pace | 8:03/mi | Rounded time for each mile |
| Speed | 7.456454… mph | Miles covered per hour |
Use a formula with explicit units
- Seconds per kilometre = 3,600 ÷ speed in km/h.
- Seconds per mile = 3,600 ÷ speed in mph.
- Speed in km/h = 3,600 ÷ seconds per kilometre.
- Convert a minutes:seconds pace to total seconds before dividing.
The colon in 5:30 is not a decimal point. Five minutes and thirty seconds is 330 seconds, or 5.5 minutes. Entering 5.30 as a decimal number of minutes describes a different duration.
Keep the original number
An equivalent pace may require a fraction of a second. The screen rounds for readability, while calculations retain the original value. If you convert a rounded label back again, you may not recover exactly the input you started with. Keep the entered speed or target time as your reference.