If you prefer the new NNM Pace Calculator JS.

• CALCULATOR
• CONFIGURATION
• DOCUMENTATION
• EXAMPLES
• ABOUT
• CONTACT

Documentation

With this really easy-to-use tool, especially designed for runners, you can (for example)

• calculate your own pace in different units
• make conversions between distances in different units
• make conversions between paces in different units
• calculate target split times in many ways

Instructions

The NNM Pace Calculator can be used in many different ways and here I list some of the functionality that I have found useful. You will probably find many other ways to use the calculator. Try it, you'll love it!

Features and functionality

• You can use it as a distance converter. Define a distance in one specific unit. Then the distance can be converted to other units.
  For example, define 42195 meters.
• You can use it as a pace converter. Define a pace in one specific unit. Then the pace can be converted to other units.
  For example, define 4 minutes per kilometer.
• You can use it as a pace calculator. Define the distance in one specific unit and the time. Then the pace in several different units can be calculated. The distance is also converted to the other units.
  For example, define 5 kilometers in 20 minutes.
• You can use it as a time calculator. Define a pace in one specific unit and the distance. Then the time can be calculated. The pace and distance are also converted to the other units.
  For example, define 6 minutes per mile for 10 miles.
• You can use it as a distance calculator. Define a pace in one specific unit and the time. Then the distance can be calculated. The pace is also converted to the other units.
  For example, define 45 minutes running in 4 minutes per kilometer.
• You can get a table with target split times for different distances by defining a value in the split distance in drop-down.
  For example, suppose you plan to run 15 km with a target pace of 3:50 /km. Then you fill in the pace (3:50 per km) and 15 kilometers in the distance field. You also define kilometers in the split distance in drop-down. Push the calculate/convert button and you can read the target split times for each kilometer in the table below the calculator. You also see the target goal time, which is 57:30 in this example.

For many more examples of using the calculator, see the examples page, which is an easy way to get started.

User interface

The user interface for the calculator contains three parts that you can fill in: distance, time and pace. There are at most nine input fields that you can fill in (but of course you can't use all fields at the same time).

Valid input values

• Distance - decimal number.
• Time - hours, minutes and seconds. Hours must be a positive integer. Minutes and seconds must be positive integers in the interval 0-59.
• Pace - when using "distance per time" you can fill in a decimal number. When using "time per distance" you can fill in minutes and seconds, which must be positive integers in the interval 0-59.

Results

When you hit the Calculate button, your results will show up. The results are shown in three columns (distance, time and pace), and depending on what input values you have defined either one or all of these columns are shown. The distance and pace columns contain several rows showing you the results in several units. You can configure the units you want to use.

Target split times

If you have defined a value for Split distance in you will also see a table for the target split times.

An example is the best way to describe the target split times table. Suppose you want to run a marathon in 4 hours and you want to know your goal times for certain split distances. It is easy! Just define the distance as 42195 meters, the time as 4 hours and the split distance in as kilometers. Hit the Calculate button and you will get these target split times for each kilometer. If you prefer to see the target split times in miles (instead of kilometers), just change the split distance in to miles. Then you see the target split times for each mile instead.

Configuration

On the configuration page you can define your personal settings for the calculator. If you haven't defined any personal settings the default will be used.

Distance configuration

For each unit of distance, you have two checkboxes. With the first checkbox you define if you want the unit to be shown in the distance dropdown list. With the second checkbox you define if you want the unit to be shown in the split distance in dropdown list.

To be able to use the calculator you need to have at least one distance unit selected. You don't need any split unit.

Time configuration

Since there (at the moment) is just one way of defining the time, you have no choices here. The only choice available for time is therefore always selected, since you need at least one time unit selected to be able to use the calculator.

Pace configuration

Here you define the different units of pace that you want to use.

To be able to use the calculator you need to have at least one pace unit selected.

How your settings are stored

Your personal settings are stored as a cookie in your browser, so your settings can be remembered between your requests.

If you push the Save configuration values button your choices will be stored in a cookie with the name NNMPaceCalculator. The cookie will contain your defined distances, split distances and paces.

If you instead push the Reset to defaults button your choices will be removed and you will get the default choices. The reset is accomplished by removing the NNMPaceCalculator cookie from your browser.

The Set all and Clear all buttons are convenient ways for marking/unmarking all checkboxes. No new configuration values are stored just by using these two buttons, so to make your settings persistent you have to push Save configuration values (and allow cookies).

Default values

The default values may change from time to time. The easiest way to see what they currently are is to click the Reset to defaults button.

Remarks

If the calculator is not working correctly or as you expect, you may find the reasons in the following remarks:

• The decimal point to use is the dot character "." and not the comma character ",". For example, the floating point number 12.5 is valid, but 12,5 is invalid.
• The input parameters used for the calculation/conversion are marked in bold in the result.
• If the input parameters contain errors, the errors are shown in red above the pace calculator.
• If there are blank result rows or if they just show zeroes, the reason can be that the result values are to small (for example, time values less than a second are not shown).
• The distance value used by the 400m laps (and 200m laps) is the number of laps, i.e. you can think of the unit as being 400m. For example, if you define 2.5 400m laps, this is equivalent to defining the distance as 1000 meters.
• In the hh:mm:ss fields you can define the hours, minutes and seconds. In the mm:ss fields you can define the minutes and seconds. For the hours, minutes and seconds values you shall use integers. Defining fractions of seconds is not possible (so for example you can't define 9.69 seconds at 100 meters).
• In the distance and pace (decimal) fields you can define a floating point number.
• There is only one (1) button (named Calculate/convert) you have to use for getting your results. The reason is that the calculator is smart enough to know what calculations that can be performed. Instead of you deciding if it is the pace, the distance or the time you look for, the calculator does as much as possible from your defined input values.
• Nothing is calculated/converted until you hit the Calculate/convert button. Specifically, just changing values in the dropdown lists will not do any calculations/conversions.
• There is a subtle difference between the different pace/speed units that are used. If d denotes distance, t denotes time and v denotes speed, the famous formula says d=v*t. The speed is v=d/t, i.e. distance divided by time (1). If you invert this you get v'=t/d instead, i.e. time divided by distance (2). So, the paces/speeds can be divided into these two categories:
  • (1) distance per time: meters per second, kilometers per hour, miles per hour, nautical miles per hour (knots), etc.
  • (2) time per distance: minutes per km, minutes per mile, minutes per 400m, minutes per 100m, etc.
  In the configuration page the paces in category (1) are compared to m/s and the paces in category (2) are instead compared to s/m.
• You can't define both a distance, a time and a pace, since then nothing can be calculated. At most two of these can be defined for each calculation.
• The value used in the calculations for the speed of sound is 343 m/s.
• You need to have JavaScript enabled, to be able to use all the features for NNM Pace Calculator. For example, the input fields for defining the pace are dynamically changed with the help of JavaScript.
• If you are missing some units in the calculator's interface, it may be because you haven't configured them to be used. Only those units that are marked in the configuration page will be used for the calculator (and if you haven't saved your own configuration settings the default values will be used).
• At the top of the configuration page, there may be different messages shown. Informative messages are shown in gray. Messages indicating that your request was fulfilled are shown in green. When problems occur, the messages are shown in red.
• Make sure to read the messages shown in the configuration page when trying to save your configuration values, since there may have been some problems saving them.
• Note that you need to allow cookies in your browser, to successfully store your own settings.
• Remember that you need at least one distance unit and at least one pace unit and at least one time unit defined to be able to save your configuration values.

References

Units

The relationship between the distances compared to SI-unit 1 m.

The relationship between the paces and speeds compared to SI-unit 1 m/s.

Note: The metric length system that is used nowadays is built around the number 10. For those using inches, feet, yards and so on, it is not that "easy", so here is a reminder:

• 1 foot equals 12 inches.
• 1 yard equals 3 feet (or 36 inches).
• 1 mile equals 1760 yards (or 5280 feet or 15840 inches).

Mathematics

The really simple mathematical formula that lies behind most of the calculations is of course

    d = v * t

where d (unit m) is the distance, v (unit m/s) is the speed/pace and t (unit s) is the time.

How to calculate the number of rows in the TargetSplitTimes table

Assume that you have the following definitions

    MAX_SPLIT_ROWS = 5
    SPLIT_INTERVAL = 10
    x = total number of elements   (known variable)
    y = rows per column            (unknown variable)

The equation will then be

    y = ( floor( ( x - 1 ) / ( MAX_SPLIT_ROWS * SPLIT_INTERVAL ) ) + 1 ) * SPLIT_INTERVAL

With the example values from above

    y = ( floor( ( x - 1 ) / 50 ) + 1 ) * 10

or as a table

    ______x_____    _y_
      1 ...   50 =>  10
     51 ...  100 =>  20
    101 ...  150 =>  30
    151 ...  200 =>  40
    201 ...  250 =>  50
         :       :
    901 ...  950 => 190
    951 ... 1000 => 200

So if you have 43 splits (for example a marathon splitted in kilometers) the resulting target split times table will contain 10 rows (and 5 columns), which you can see here for Dennis Kimetto's world record in marathon.

References at Wikipedia

• ½-marathon - 21097.5 meters
• 10000 meters
• Astronomical unit [au] - approximately 1.496 × 10¹¹ m
• Athletics - among other things the reason for the 400m and 200m laps
• Foot [ft] - equals 0.3048 m
• Imperial units
• Inch [in] - equals 0.0254 m
• Indoor rowing - among other things the reason for the 500m splits
• Kilometers per hour [km/h] - approximately 0.28 m/s
• Knots [k] or [nmi/h] - approximately 0.51 m/s
• Light-year [ly] - approximately 9.461 × 10¹⁵ m
• Mach number [Ma]
• Marathon - 42195 meters
• Meter [m] - SI-unit of length
• Meters per second [m/s] - SI-unit for speed and velocity
• Metric system
• Mile [mi] - equals 1609.344 m
• Miles per hour [mph] or [mi/h] - approximately 0.45 m/s
• Nautical mile [nmi] - equals 1852 m
• Orders of magnitude (length)
• Orders of magnitude (speed)
• Pace
• Parsec [pc] - approximately 3.086 × 10¹⁶ m
• Speed
• Speed of light [c]
• The Earth
• The Moon
• The Sun
• Yard [yd] - equals 0.9144 m

Questions?

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me.