What's the Best Running Pace? Google Trends Reveal Most Popular Searches

Analysis by Raymond Britt

What's your best running pace? For Training? For Racing? For Racing different distances? Our research using three years of google search data suggests that, based on the volume of searches, a large number of runners aren't sure they've got it figured out.



We've summarized our analysis of google search trends for the terms 'running pace', '5k pace'. '10k pace', 'half marathon pace', and 'race pace', and the results are presented below. These are the most common search terms used to learn about race pace.

[We have, through extensive analysis, compiled age group race pace charts for Chicago Marathon, Boston Marathon, New York City Marathon and Marine Corps Marathon.]








Top 50 Best Races to Qualify for Boston

Fifty races, 300,000+ finishers, 42,000+ Boston Qualifiers -- here's our list of the Top 50 Best Marathons for runners who want to Qualify for Boston. Also see our Marathon Training and Racing section, and our complete coverage of Chicago, Boston and New York City marathons.




To see the qualifying times you'll be shooting for, visit our Qualifying for Boston analysis.

To put these top 50 races in perspective, here are excerpts from RunTri's extensive marathon analysis and race coverage, to help you on your journey to Boston. Click on title links for further analysis/discussion behind each chart.



Race Pace Examples: How to Qualify for Boston at Chicago Marathon


Predicting your full marathon time based on your best half marathon: Marine Corps Marathon example.


Average finish times by Age Group: New York Marathon example.



Average finish time by Age, year-by-year: PF Chang's Arizona Marathon example.


Impact of Weather on Average Race Results: Boston Marathon Example.


And more . . . www.RunTri.com home page.

Running and Race Pace Calculator Google Search Trends

Analysis by Raymond Britt

According to www.RunningUSA.com 16.957 million athletes ran and finished running races in 2017. A large portion of these runners are concerned with running pace to some degree. For preparation, many want to know how fast to run while training for a certain race. For those lining up for that big race, many want to know what pace they should run to meet or beat a target finish time.

There are a tremendous number of searches related to running on google, and we were curious: what are the most popular terms. Below, we present google's results for these five search terms, tracked over a five-year period.
  • running pace
  • run pace
  • race pace
  • pace time
  • 5k pace

Search Term Interest Over Five Year Period

Each of five lines are color coded by search term, and the popularity of each term relative to the others is indicated by placement of the lines. Note that 'running pace'. far and away the most popular search five years ago, has declined as '5k pace' and 'pace time' are increasingly popular search terms.