What does pace mean?

I'm new to Garmin and can't figure out what the pace data represents.

I walked and had a pace of 12:47 /km

km/h wouldn't make sense, because 12 km/h would be too fast for walking.

What do the numbers mean?

6 points · 7 comments · view on lemmy.world

7 Comments

egonallanon@lemm.ee · 8 pts · 1y (6 replies)

Typically pace is measured in minutes per kilometre. So it measured you as taking 12 minutes 47 seconds to walk a kilometre.

squirrel@discuss.tchncs.de · 3 pts · 1y (5 replies)

Interesting. I wonder why they choose this format. I used a running-calculator now that converted it to 4.69 km/h, which is way easier to read and understand.

gressen@lemm.ee · 4 pts · 1y (2 replies)

It's a popular way to compare times in races. It is a bit more meaningful to compare total times than speeds.

squirrel@discuss.tchncs.de · 3 pts · 1y (1 reply)

I see. Thanks for the explanation. I might get used to this format eventually.

PlantJam@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1y

It's also much easier to convert your race time to a pace by using this format. If I complete a 5k in 40 minutes, that's 40/5 = 8 minutes per kilometer.

jerkface@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 1y

Human rate of motion is usually expressed as pace rather than speed; they are reciprocals of each other.

CodeMonkeyUK@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y
[ removed ]
evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y

One way to look at it is that "speed", in km/hr, is an instantaneous measure. As you walk, you speed up and slow down; maybe there are hills or something. That's not super useful to most people. What is useful is knowing "is this chunk of my walk/run slower or faster than the last chunk?". Someone running a 10k wants to know their average speed for each kilometer. Someone running or walking a shorter race might want finer splits, but it's convenient for comparison to still use 1 kilometer as the baseline because you have a better sense of what it feels like to walk a 12 minute km pace than a 6 minute half km pace, even if they are the same thing.