UKC

It the risk of depressing myself by actually finding out that I'm fat and slow, what would people consider an 'average' pace for trail running. For instance what time to do 4.5 miles with 350ft of ascent?

Would circa 10:00 min/mile be considered a fat wheezy kid pace?

In reply to pepperpot:

It's really hard to give any kind of average answer, since the pace you run at is going to depend on the terrain, and on your flat speed.

And do your mean a total of 350ft over 4.5 miles, which averages at about 80ft per mile, which really isn't much beyond flat, or is it 350ft in 1 mile with the rest flat.

If it's the former, I'd find 10mins/mile to be slow (my flat pace at that distance on even offroad terrain would be about 7mins/mile). If all the climb comes in one short sharp hill, I'd probably slow to about 8 mins/mile.

In reply to pepperpot:

As a guide, I'm pretty average and my last two races were:

3.4miles/1250ft in 37:49 (11/mile)
7.3miles/1270ft in 1:04:00 (sub 9/mile)

Obviously there was a lot more ascent in these than you're talking about. 350ft isn't much ascent over 4.5 miles so 10min miles would be on the slow side of things. Are there past results you could have a look at? Terrain makes a difference.

A rough guide is that a hilly off-road run will add around 50% to your flat road times. (my pb's are 5k = 18:50 and 10k = 39:49).

The whippets and experts will be along shortly to correct/improve this advice!

In reply to pepperpot:

It's fine in my opinion. Obviously, it's not going to win you any races but most runners only race themselves so I guess the question is... are YOU happy with it? If not, run more. If you are, run more.

In reply to Eric the Red:

I've been running three time a week for about 5 weeks now, after a layoff of a year or so. Must admit seeing 10:00min/mile is a bit of a surprise!

I guess as I only race myself its nice to have a target pace to go for....

In reply to tony:

The 350ft of ascent is over perhaps 50% of the run. Its basically a ridge, starting at the top, running down to the valley bottom, flat for a bit, back to the top, valley bottom, flatish, then back up to to the top.

The terrain varies from hard pack fire road, to vague paths through forest, to loose sandy gravel.

My pace on a 2 mile flat is about 8:50....

In reply to pepperpot: 450ft isn't much in 4.5 miles.. on a good trail I'd not be that different to the road.. 7s

In reply to pepperpot:

Just looked over some of my training runs and on a short run which is about 8km with about 250m of ascent, I average 5.55min/km

In old money that's about 4 miles, with 800ft at 9.5min/miles.

All that tells you though is how fast I ran - the terrain I expect is different and I was taking it fairly easy.

Rather than trying to measure yourself against other people's numbers, watch for your own improvement. Run the same route again and see if you improve. One of the things I like about Strava is the segment section, so I've divided local areas up for interval training, and certain routes I've tried to crack under certain times.

In reply to pepperpot:

It is all down to the terrain, if it is good trail, I would expect to run it nearly as fast as on the road and most of the road runs I do have similar levels of ascent per mile to what you describe, but difficult ground under foot can easily add a minute or much more per mile.

Average pace running will depend on lots of factors and it is really hard to know, if asked about average for men, I would base it on runners in my club, but the do 5k anything between 14 and 24 minutes, me running 18 would be about average, most races I enter I am well above average, I could enter some and come dead last.

In reply to Eric the Red:

That about nails it. I would be happy with that pace [anything would be good right now as off injured] if out for a gentle run. Do you stop to enjoy the view, watch the lambs, notice which spring flowers are blooming, smell the roses, laugh at your dog. You get the picture, dont take it too seriously. Enjoy, you are lucky to be out there.

In reply to sarahkeast:

Thanks very much for that! Probably a much healthier frame of mind there.

In reply to sarahkeast:

You're out for a run..

I do that sometimes, it depends but I have a fairly set schedule, so Mondays and Fridays runs are often steady 7-10 milers, normaly checking out new areas, new paths, stopping to enjoy it.. tuesday > thursday are all hard runs, even in nice areas.. But running with some who's better than me is really motivating...

In reply to pepperpot:

I think it makes a big difference how good you are at hills. Though of course how good you are at hills depends on how often you run up hills.

I struggle on the mildest of incline. 3 miles with a massive total ascent of a 120 feet last night as part of a quick longer run: I went from chatting to a complete wreck (while they continued to chat).

For the run you describe, I think I would be 90 seconds off flat road pace, for comparable effort.

I would suggest 9 min/mile as a sensible medium term goal for the run you describe, on 3 runs per week. I wouldn't, though, have a benchmark run that started and ended at my door. If I wanted to time myself over 4.5 miles I would have this as the middle of maybe an 8 mile run. This is maybe an age thing. If I'm running with younger people, which I seem to be doing a lot of recently, I have to do a covert couple of miles before I meet them.