Treadmill pace converter
What the number on the console means in pace, in both units, and separately what the incline is costing you.
Per mile
10:00
Per kilometre
6:13
Speed
6.0 mph
9.7 km/h
Treadmill speed to pace
The whole table at a glance, for the speeds a treadmill console actually offers. No incline applied; this is the exact arithmetic conversion.
| mph | km/h | Per mile | Per km | 5K would take |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.0 | 6.4 | 15:00 | 9:19 | 46:36 |
| 4.5 | 7.2 | 13:20 | 8:17 | 41:25 |
| 5.0 | 8.0 | 12:00 | 7:27 | 37:17 |
| 5.5 | 8.9 | 10:55 | 6:47 | 33:54 |
| 6.0 | 9.7 | 10:00 | 6:13 | 31:04 |
| 6.5 | 10.5 | 9:14 | 5:44 | 28:41 |
| 7.0 | 11.3 | 8:34 | 5:20 | 26:38 |
| 7.5 | 12.1 | 8:00 | 4:58 | 24:51 |
| 8.0 | 12.9 | 7:30 | 4:40 | 23:18 |
| 8.5 | 13.7 | 7:04 | 4:23 | 21:56 |
| 9.0 | 14.5 | 6:40 | 4:09 | 20:43 |
| 9.5 | 15.3 | 6:19 | 3:55 | 19:37 |
| 10.0 | 16.1 | 6:00 | 3:44 | 18:38 |
| 10.5 | 16.9 | 5:43 | 3:33 | 17:45 |
| 11.0 | 17.7 | 5:27 | 3:23 | 16:57 |
| 11.5 | 18.5 | 5:13 | 3:15 | 16:13 |
| 12.0 | 19.3 | 5:00 | 3:06 | 15:32 |
Speed and pace are the same thing
A treadmill shows speed; a runner thinks in pace. They are reciprocals, so the conversion is exact
and involves no assumptions at all: minutes per mile = 60 / mph. Everything in the
table above is that one division. Because a mile is exactly 1,609.344 m, the kilometre column is the
mile column divided by 1.609.
What incline is worth, and what it is not
The incline figure is the one part of this page that is a model rather than arithmetic. It uses
Minetti and colleagues' 2002 measurements of the energy cost of running on gradients from −45% to
+45%, fitted as a polynomial in the gradient. Running at gradient i costs
Cr(i) joules per kilogram per metre; the flat speed that burns energy at the same rate
is speed × Cr(i) / Cr(0), with Cr(0) = 3.6.
This is an energy-cost equivalence. It answers "how hard is this working me right now" and is the same family of correction behind grade-adjusted pace in training apps. It does not mean you could race that equivalent pace on the flat: sustained racing is limited by lactate clearance and fuel as much as by energy cost, and those do not scale the same way.
One consequence: the curve does not fall forever as the ground drops away. Cost is lowest somewhere around −10% to −20% and rises again on steeper descents, because braking is itself expensive. That matches what steep downhills feel like.
The 1% convention is a different correction
The familiar advice to set the treadmill to 1% comes from Jones and Doust (1996), who found that 1% made treadmill oxygen cost match outdoor running at the same speed for speeds above about 8 km/h. It compensates for the air resistance you do not have to overcome indoors. It is a small, specific fix and is unrelated to the much larger effect of running up a real hill. Do not add both and expect them to mean the same thing.
Taking a treadmill session outdoors
If you are running your workouts indoors and racing outdoors, the paces that matter are the ones your fitness supports, not the ones the belt happens to be set to. Put a recent race into the VDOT calculator to get your threshold and interval paces, then set the console to the speed that matches. The table above converts in that direction just as well.
Common questions
What pace is 6.0 mph on a treadmill?
6.0 mph is exactly a 10:00 mile, which is 6:13 per kilometre. The conversion is exact arithmetic: 60 minutes divided by the speed gives minutes per mile. 7.0 mph is 8:34/mile, 8.0 mph is 7:30/mile, and 10.0 mph is 6:00/mile.
Why should I set the treadmill to 1% incline?
A 1996 study by Jones and Doust found that a 1% gradient made the oxygen cost of treadmill running match outdoor running at the same speed, for speeds above about 8 km/h. The reason is air resistance: outdoors you push through the air, on a treadmill you do not. It is a small correction for a specific problem, and it is separate from the much larger effort cost of a real incline.
Is treadmill running easier than running outside?
At the same speed, marginally: you save the cost of overcoming air resistance, and the belt surface is usually more forgiving than pavement. But the difference is smaller than most people assume, and it is swamped by other factors: treadmill running is mentally harder for many people, and the fixed pace removes the natural variation that makes outdoor running feel easier than it is.
How much faster is a 2% incline worth?
Using Minetti’s measured cost-of-running curve, running at a 2% gradient costs about the same energy per second as running roughly 5% faster on the flat. At a 10:00/mile effort that is worth somewhere around 30 seconds per mile. This is an energy-cost equivalence, not a race-pace equivalence: you could not race a flat mile at that pace just because the incline felt that hard.
Can I use incline to simulate a hilly race?
Partly. Uphill running on a treadmill reproduces the cardiovascular and muscular demand of climbing quite well. What it cannot reproduce is downhill running, which is where most of the muscle damage in a hilly race comes from: the eccentric loading of braking on descents. Most treadmills do not decline at all, so a treadmill-only build for a hilly race leaves you unprepared for the part that hurts most the next day.