When you run a race, it is easy to see how you compare to others in your age group or gender category as you can see the race results, or compare your best times with those of elite runners.
However, for everyday training or for runners who take a solely recreational approach to running and never enter races, knowing the average human running speed can be helpful to see how they stack up.
In this guide, we will look at average running speeds and average times for various race distances and the determining factors that affect each individual’s running speed so you can have a benchmark for your personal data.
What’s a Good Running Pace?
Whether you are trying to determine a “good“ running pace or even the average human running speed, there are a couple of key factors to consider.
For example, when determining the average human running speed, are you wondering about the average speed at which a sprinter runs at top speed for a 100-meter dash or the average speed when running a mile or full marathon?
What Factors Affect Average Running Speed?
#1: Age
Children run slower than adults due to their smaller body size and immature development.
Young runners are still developing and growing, which means they may have shorter legs, less muscle mass, less muscle strength, and poorer cardiovascular efficiency.
The peak age range for maximal speed is generally in the mid-20s for sprinting and shorter distances and slightly older (upwards to the early 30s) for long-distance running.
After the mid-30s, and certainly after the age of 40, the average running speed for humans drops and continues to drop more significantly with every decade of life.
After about 30, we begin to lose muscle mass naturally, and anabolic hormones, such as testosterone, begin to decrease.
Aerobic fitness and endurance also begin to decline with age slowly.
#2: Sex
Your biological sex also has a significant impact on what constitutes a good running pace.
Given the differences in body composition, mainly the higher body fat percentage in women compared to men and the longer limbs and stronger muscles of men compared to women, the average running speed for male runners is faster than that of female runners.
For these reasons, world records for running distances, from sprinting through the mile to long-distance races such as the marathon, are faster for men and women.
The exception here is potentially with ultramarathon running, where female runners seem to match or even outperform their male counterparts.
#3: Distance
As mentioned, answering the question, “What is a good running pace, or how fast can most people run?“ chiefly depends on the distance you are discussing.
The average sprint speed is much faster than the average mile pace, average 5K race pace, average 10K pace, average half marathon pace, and average marathon pace, all of which get progressively slower as the distance gets longer.
Therefore, when it comes to the average speed for runners, or what qualifies as a “good running pace,“ you absolutely have to narrow down the distance you are interested in assessing.
#4: Effort
When determining a “good running pace,“consider whether you mean a good pace for a training run or a race/max effort.
The average running speed for a race will be faster than running the same distance in training.
#5: Experience Level
The last key factor that must be considered when determining the average running pace for men and women or a good running pace is the runners’ experience and fitness level.
A good running pace for a beginner will be slower than a good running pace for experienced or elite athletes.
All runners can remember their first couple of runs when they were woefully out of shape, and their bodies had yet to adapt to the physical stresses and cardiovascular demands of running.
It takes time to build up your endurance, strength, and aerobic capacity as a runner and to hone and practice your pacing strategies.
But, through consistent training with workouts such as long runs, tempo runs, high-intensity interval training, strength training, and hill sprints, all runners can improve their running speed.
What is considered a good average running speed for beginners?
Running a 10-minute mile is good for a beginner who has only recently begun running or who has not been doing much consistent training.
Your mile time is expected to improve significantly as your body adapts to running and you step up your level of training and comfort with the sport.
Novice and beginner runners still build their cardiovascular fitness, musculoskeletal strength, and neuromuscular coordination to run well.
Runners running for at least six months or numerous years have already developed their cardiovascular fitness and strength.
It takes time for the physiological adaptations from running training to manifest in the body and to adequately build up your training volume and intensity in a safe and progressive manner.
Again, the thinking is that a beginner runner is still developing and has the potential to significantly improve with the correct training program.
For example, if a novice or a beginner runner can run a 7-minute mile with very little training, he or she not only displays quite a bit of natural talent but likely will be able to run a mile much faster after following more consistent training.
So, how fast does a human run? Let’s check it out!
What Is The Average Human Running Speed?
Note that speed refers to miles per hour or kilometers per hour, whereas “pace“ refers to the amount of time it takes to run a mile or a kilometer at that particular speed.
Given the variety of factors just discussed that can affect a typical or good running speed for a human, here are some specific data points for the average speed of running different distances for men and women and good running speeds for men and women of different levels:
What’s the Average Running Pace for Training?
According to Strava, the average running pace for a logged run is 9:53 per mile. This works out to an average running speed of just over 6 miles per hour.
This data is aggregated from millions of users from 2021.
This average running pace is for all logged runs—training runs, workouts, and races—so the average training pace for runners might be slightly slower (since race pace runs would bring down the average running pace in this data set).
What Is The Average Running Speed For A Man And A Woman?
Other Strava reports1Climbing Community Hardgoods, Footwear Buyers and Brands Choosing The Big Gear Show in 2021 – Outdoor Industry Association. (n.d.). https://outdoorindustry.org/press-release/climbing-community-hardgoods-footwear-buyers-and-brands-choosing-the-big-gear-show-in-2021/ suggest that the average running pace for a man is 9:03 per mile and 10:21 per mile for a woman. Here, we can see that the running speed for men is indeed faster than the average running speed for women.
What Is the Average Jogging Speed?
According to some sources,2Long, L. L., & Srinivasan, M. (2013). Walking, running, and resting under time, distance, and average speed constraints: optimality of walk–run–rest mixtures. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 10(81), 20120980. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2012.0980 the average jogging speed is 4 to 6 mph, which corresponds to a jogging speed of 6.44 to 9.66 kilometers per hour.
Therefore, if we take the average jogging speed to be 5 mph and 8 km/h, we can say that the average jog pace is 12 minutes per mile or 7:30 per kilometer.
Average Running Speed for the Mile
Running Level 31 Mile Times By Age And Ability – Running Level. (n.d.). Runninglevel.com. https://runninglevel.com/running-times/1-mile-times reports that the average mile time across all ages, genders, and abilities is 7:04.
This works out to an average running speed of 8.49 mph or 13.66 kph.
Average Race Finish Times
Run Repeat4Compare Running Finish Times [Calculator] – 5K, 10K, Half Marathon, Marathon. (n.d.). Athletic Shoe Reviews. https://runrepeat.com/how-do-you-masure-up-the-runners-percentile-calculator provides a race distance finish time calculator that allows you to compare your running race performances to the finish times of age- and sex-matched runners based on data collected over 20 years from 35 million race results from more than 28,000 races.
You can look at the average running speed for the 5K, 10K, half marathon, and marathon to estimate the average running pace for each distance based on sex and age.
Using the 50th percentile finish time for each race distance, we created the following table to show the average running pace for different race distances based on sex:
| Distance | Average Finish Time | Average Pace | Average Men’s Finish Time | Average Men’s Pace | Average Women’s Finish Time | Average Women’s Pace |
| 5k | 0:34:37 | 11:09 | 0:31:28 | 10:08 | 0:37:28 | 12:04 |
| 10k | 1:02:08 | 9:59 | 0:57:15 | 9:13 | 1:06:54 | 10:46 |
| Half Marathon | 2:14:59 | 10:18 | 1:59:48 | 9:08 | 2:24:03 | 10:59 |
| Marathon | 4:26:33 | 10:10 | 4:14:29 | 9:42 | 4:42:09 | 10:46 |
What Is the Average Running Speed for Sprinting?
Engineer Calcs5Toofan, K. (2019, July 24). Discover the Average Human Athlete Running Speed. Engineer Calcs. https://engineercalcs.com/average-human-running-speed/ did an interesting analysis in 2019 to determine the top human sprinting speed based on factors like age, running performance level, and sex.
Sprinting records from sites like Athletic.net6Track & Field and Cross Country Statistics. (2019). Athletic.net; Athletic.net. https://www.athletic.net/and Wikipedia.com7Wikipedia. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Wikipedia.org; Wikimedia Foundation. https://www.wikipedia.org/ and race results from the 2018 World Masters Athletics 8HOME. (n.d.). World Masters Athletics. Retrieved March 12, 2024, from https://world-masters-athletics.org/Championships in Malaga were used to average sprint speeds based on the top 10 100-meter performances for each group.
We updated the data to be current and then calculated the average human athlete sprinting speed across both sexes to be 18.23 mph (3:17.5 minutes per mile), or 29.33 kilometers per hour.
The average sprinting speed for men is 19.52 mph (3:04.4 minutes per mile), or 31.4 kilometers per hour, and the average sprinting speed for women is 17.12 mph (3:30 minutes per mile), or 27.55 kilometers per hour.
If you are curious how the average person compares with the running speed of different animals, check out our guide that looks at the running speed of different species of animals here.
