Treadmill Incline Pace Equivalent Calculator

About this calculator

Running uphill costs more energy per unit of distance than running the same pace on flat ground. The energy-cost-of-running model published by Minetti and colleagues in 2002 describes that extra cost as a function of gradient, and it’s the standard reference exercise physiologists and treadmill software use to translate incline effort into an equivalent flat-road effort.

Runners doing hill repeats or treadmill incline sessions use it to know what flat pace their effort corresponds to, and coaches use it to prescribe lower-impact incline workouts for injured athletes who still need to hit a specific aerobic training stress.

This calculator takes your treadmill speed and incline percentage and returns the flat-road pace that costs the same energy, using Minetti’s energy-cost curve.