Marathon Pace Charts to Help You Reach Your Goal Finish Time

Even if your marathon goal is simply to finish, knowing your run pace is helpful for both training and race day. And if you do want to reach a certain time goal, such as breaking four hours in a marathon, you’ll need to learn how to push your pace when you train.

To help you figure out your pacing during training and what goal to set for when you get to the starting line, here are helpful marathon pace charts, plus how to use them to your advantage.

How to Use a Marathon Pace Chart as a Training Tool

There are two main reasons to consult these marathon pace charts:

So you can easily determine your pace per mile and/or pace per kilometer from a race or recent training run.
To see what pace you’ll need to average to hit a specific goal time. For example, if you’re targeting a sub-1:50 half marathon, you can easily see that you’ll need to average a 8:23 per mile or faster. Knowing that pace, you can then structure your training accordingly.

To determine your workout pace during training, you typically want to add anywhere between 30 seconds to as much as two minutes per mile to your goal race pace, run coach Susan Paul tells Runner’s World.

That’s because running more easy miles when you train will support your faster miles when you race. How much you choose to slow down is up to you, but remember that the longer the run, the slower your pace.

Of course, you won’t hit the perfect pace for every training run or even for every race or race segment. Your training paces will vary based on things like the weather conditions, elevation, or the terrain you are running. Plus, other factors like poor sleep or stress can factor in, as well.

So use the following marathon pace charts as a reference point for where you want to be with your average running pace, and adjust from there.

If you want to take the guesswork out of all your training paces—including tempos, intervals, and long runs—you can plug in your race goal time to the Training Pace Calculator tool to see how fast you should clock every type of run.

Your Marathon Pace Charts

First, choose which measure of pace—mile or kilometer—you prefer. Then, select the page devoted to the pace range that most closely matches your typical times.

Each marathon pace chart shows what time a given average pace will produce for six common race distances: 5K, 5 miles, 10K, 10 miles, half marathon, and marathon. Charts are available for pace per mile, from 5:00 per mile to 15:59 per mile, and pace per kilometer, from 3:00 per kilometer to 12:59 per kilometer.

Minutes per Mile

Minutes per Kilometer

Provided courtesy of the Cal Coast Track Club. All running pace charts are copyrighted and may not be altered, copied, or used on another web site without permission.