Running Pace

You are what you are, Frank. If you're really concerned about what average other triathletes are doing, look at this year's results for some of your potential target races.

Plan on it. I just didn't know if I needed to pick it up a little or just keep adding distance

It varies from person to person.  I don't know if there's a "known" average running pace.  There's so many variables- muscle type, fitness level, sex, age.  It's hard to say.  Just do your best adn with time you'll learn what YOUR average pace is, and that's all you need to worry about.

If you REALLY want to get technical about it, then find a local race results and calculate it out.

Bottom line is you run what you can run, and put the best effort that you can do. If your racing pace is 8:00 min/mile, then it is just that.

there are no real avg times for any distance. each year the racing field change, faster/slower athletes might show up, the racing conditions might change, so what was a fast time last year, might be a slow time this year. Like otheres suggested, you can get an guestimate by looking at last years results.

To answer your question, 8min/mile is about average.

What are your goals? How well do you want to do? What do you want?

Do you want to be FOP? If so, 8min/mile won't get you there unless you have killer swim and bike times.

Are you just trying to finish? With 8min/mile you will have no problem.

Do you want to beat person X? Find out how person X does and work from there.

At 8min/mile you are on the edge of doing pretty well, BTW.

Frank my man! 8 minutes is strong, especially in mid-November. However, beware that after swimming a 1/2 mile, and riding 14 miles up and down hills, you might find that your 8 minute mile has turned into a 9.5 minute mile.

Echo...8 minutes is better than a lot of folks, but what matters is what's right for you. A lot of people on this board would love to get down to 8 minute miles, while others would consider it quite disappointing. Most races will give breakdowns of the race legs, so you can see how you do compared to the pack or your age group on each part. That may help you decide where to focus your training. If you've been a runner all your life and 8 minutes is where you're at, then there may not be a great deal to be gained there. If you're just starting the running thing, then there may be more. You spend more time on the bike than on anything else, so a lot can be gained or lost in that leg.

I started out by doing some races and deciding where to focus training based on the results. The suggestions to look at local race results are wise. Knowing your own weaknesses is a big help to improving your time.

I just started running seriously again at the beginning of this past summer and I am real happy with 8 min miles but if I need to I can push myself harder. I would rather work on adding distance to that pace and the times decreasing slowly rather than going back down in distance and working on mile times. I was just curious to know if that pace would leave me in the dust of everyone else. Granted I know that there are people out there doing 6:30-7:00 miles and people out there doing 20:00 miles. I do appreciate everyones answers I am VERY new to this sport and I hope it pans out and turns out to be alot of fun. So far the people have been great.

You really need to look at what you want to accomplish and set some goals.

The average runner in a tri probably is in the 8 -10 minute range depending on he length of race (if you take the true average). The fasties will be in the high 5's to 6's. For an oly. length if you want to be in top 20 contention in an AG (assuming you've had a good swim and bike) you should be running in the low 7's or high 6's.

One goal should always be to be faster and comfortable at that speed. Obviously the more quality miles you put in, the faster you will naturally get to a point. Then speedwork will have to come into play to get faster. It really depends on what you want to accomplish.

Do you want to be top five in your AG? You'll need to get faster if you are not in the 50+ age range (no offense intended towards our older participants of course!).

I just finished a half marathon with almost exactly an 8 minute average pace. There were over a 1,000 runners in this race distance. It put me in the top 25% of that running population, so that is not likelly to be average (it's better to think of medians than averages as a few super fast or slow runners begin to skew the metric). I did an Oly 10K at about a 7:20 pace and it put me in the the top 20% of the running field so you get the idea where these paces fall. Most sprints have a lot of slow runners, an 8 minute pace will be much faster than the average in most sprints. Race with automated time keeping will allow you to find the median running time and pace for that race very easily as they rank each athlete for each segment.

Run as fast as you can.

I would be happy with 8:00/mile in a half marathon!

You are correct. Pace is relative to race distance as well as to whom you are comparing that pace to. Are we comparing the pace to the entire field or just one gender.

8:00 per mile is on the edge of becoming FOP in many tri's. With a bit of speed work, I am guessing that the pace could be cut, possibly quite a bit. But, is it worth the extra time and effort considering one's goals and priorities?

I think you also need to see what pace you can do after a hard cycling workout (if you are talking your 8 min pace is just a stand alone run). many people have a substantially slower pace after the biking leg. I worked on doing those brick workouts quite a bit last season and I still keep about a 15sec/min slower pace after I get off the bike as opposed to just getting out and running. My advice...try to go for a run after you bike. That will tell you where you really are...it it will make you stronger too!