Pace Converter — min/km to min/mile, km/h and mph

How it works

A pace and a speed are the same thing measured in different units, and moving between them needs only two facts. The first is the length of a mile: exactly 1.609344 kilometres, fixed by international agreement. Because a mile is longer than a kilometre, it takes more time to cover, so the per-mile pace is the per-kilometre pace multiplied by 1.609344 — a bigger number for the same effort.

The second is that pace and speed are reciprocals. If a kilometre takes 300 seconds, then in one hour (3,600 seconds) you cover 3,600 ÷ 300 = 12 kilometres, so 5:00/km is 12 km/h. Divide that by the mile factor and you get miles per hour. Nothing here is estimated; it is all exact conversion.

Worked example

Take a pace of 5:00 per kilometre — 300 seconds:

• Per mile: 300 × 1.609344 = 482.8 seconds, which is 8:03 per mile.
• km/h: 3,600 ÷ 300 = 12 km/h.
• mph: 12.0 ÷ 1.609344 = 7.46 mph.

A faster 4:00/km (240 s) works out to 6:26 per mile and exactly 15 km/h; an easier 6:00/km is 9:39 per mile and 10 km/h. The reference table lists these common paces so you can place any pace at a glance.

Frequently asked questions

How do I convert min/km to min/mile?

Multiply the per-kilometre pace by 1.609344, the number of kilometres in a mile. A mile is longer, so it takes proportionally more time: 5:00 per km becomes 5:00 × 1.609344 = 8:03 per mile. To go the other way, divide the per-mile pace by 1.609344.

How do pace and speed relate?

They are reciprocals scaled by an hour. Speed in km/h is 3,600 divided by the number of seconds you take per kilometre; pace in seconds per kilometre is 3,600 divided by your km/h. A 10 km/h runner takes 360 s — 6:00 — per kilometre, and vice versa.

Why is 4:00/km exactly 15 km/h?

Because 3,600 ÷ 240 = 15. Four minutes is 240 seconds, and there are 3,600 seconds in an hour, so at 240 seconds per kilometre you complete exactly 15 kilometres in an hour. Several round paces land on round speeds this way — 6:00/km is exactly 10 km/h, 5:00/km exactly 12 km/h.

Is the mile-to-kilometre conversion exact?

Yes. Since 1959 the international mile has been defined as exactly 1,609.344 metres — it is a definition, not a measurement, so the conversion carries no rounding error of its own. Any imprecision in a converted pace comes only from rounding the display to whole seconds.

Which pace should I train by, km or miles?

Whichever your watch, races and training partners use — the two describe the same speed. Runners in most of the world plan in minutes per kilometre; the US and UK often use minutes per mile. This converter lets you move between them so a plan written in one works in the other.

Does this convert speed too, not just pace?

Yes — enter a per-kilometre pace and it returns km/h and mph alongside the per-mile pace, so it works whether you think in pace or in speed. Treadmills and bike computers usually show speed; this bridges to the pace a running plan is written in.

What does this exclude?

Everything except the unit conversion. It does not know your distance, your target, or your effort — for those, the running-pace calculator turns a run into a pace, and the marathon-pace calculator turns a goal time into the pace and splits to hit it. This page only changes the units of a pace you already have.