Track Lap Pace Calculator

About this calculator

Even pacing, running each lap of a race in the same split time, is the strategy most exercise physiologists and coaches recommend for distance events, since studies of elite championship performances consistently show that even or slightly negative splits, a faster second half, outperform starting too fast and fading. This calculator takes your overall goal time for a race and divides it evenly across however many laps of a given distance, typically 400 m on a standard outdoor track, make up that race, so you know exactly what split to hit lap after lap.

Track coaches use lap-by-lap target times during interval workouts and time trials to train runners' internal pacing sense, and racers use the same splits on race day, often checking a stopwatch at each lap to stay on target rather than relying on feel alone, which tends to drift faster in the excitement of the first lap.

Enter your goal time and the lap distance and this calculator returns the target split for each individual lap.