5K pace chart

Find your goal time on the left, then read across for the pace you need per kilometre and per mile. The remaining columns are your splits at 1K, 2K, 3K and 4K on even pace.

At this distance the splits are worth memorising rather than glancing at. A 5K is short enough that a single kilometre run 15 seconds too fast is not recoverable.

For a marathon the guidance is to start conservatively. For a 5K it is nearly the opposite: the race is short enough that a cautious first kilometre is time you simply never get back, because there is no long middle section in which to make it up.

What works is even to very slightly negative. Hit your goal pace in the first kilometre — not faster — hold it through the second and third, which is where the race hurts most and where most people drift 10–15 seconds off target, then spend whatever is left over the final kilometre.

The second and third kilometres are the whole race. They feel disproportionately hard relative to how far you have gone, and they are where the difference between your goal time and your actual time is decided.

A parkrun or time-trial from the last month is the only input worth using. Aim 30–60 seconds faster than your recent best for a genuine goal; anything more is a wish rather than a target.

If you have never raced 5K, run one at a comfortably hard effort first and use that as your baseline. Picking a number off a chart before you have a reference produces a first kilometre that ruins the other four.