What is a 8K Pace Chart?
A 8K pace chart shows the lap splits and finish time when you run at a specific pace. Our charts show a range of paces which can be helpful to customize around your desired average pace and finish time. We recommend printing out a pace chart and using it to aid your training. While running you can even refer to it to give you an idea of what your expected finish time is.
As an example, let's say you average a 7 minute per mile pace (7:00). Looking at the pace chart, you can see your lap splits and note that your finish time will be 34:47. While running though, you notice your splits are slowed than expected. You can then look to the next pace on the chart which in our default charts is a 7:15 pace and a 36:01 finish time. This can become your new goal if you are unable to increase your pace.
Pace charts assume you can run the entire race at the same pace. More experienced runners may want to use our negative split calculator if they can finish faster or our positive split calculator to account for slowing down in a race. Additionally our race goals section has more details and offers a variety of pacing strategies.
Tips for Customizing a Pace Chart
Our pace charts are more customizable than most other websites. Enter a starting pace and ending pace along with the an interval to create a range of paces between them. It is recommend that the combination of those input parameters produce approximately 6-10 paces (including the start and end paces). So that can be very close paces for shorter distances or wider intervals for longer runs. The pace chart will not display correctly if you attempt to display dozens of paces in a single chart.
We also have the option to display a pace chart by kilometers. Even if you prefer using mile paces, it may be easier to use a KM pace chart if you race distance is in kilometers.
Pace charts can also be used for biking or swimming. Just change the paces to a more appropriate range for the other sport and recalculate the charts. For endurance races like Ironman, it probably isn't' necessary to know every lap split for 112 miles but you can note lap splits for larger intervals and use them to give you a sense if you are on pace or not throughout the race.