Does 6 mph feel easier on the belt than a 10:00 mile outside? Turn treadmill speed and incline into the outdoor pace with the same effort, or a planned pace into the speed to set.
What pace is 5 mph on a treadmill?
Does 6 mph feel easier on the belt than a 10:00 mile outside? Turn treadmill speed and incline into the outdoor pace with the same effort, or a planned pace into the speed to set.
The calculator below is set to 5 mph on the belt at a 1% incline, the setting that matches the oxygen cost of running on a level road. Press Calculate for the pace per mile and per km, the oxygen cost in METs and a table of the outdoor pace from 0% to 10% incline. Type your own incline or a workout time and the result follows.
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Treadmill speed, translated to the road
Why does 6 mph feel easier on the belt than a 10:00 mile outside? Because the belt moves under you and there is no air to push through. This treadmill calculator puts a number on that gap. It turns the speed and incline on the display into the outdoor pace with the same oxygen cost, works the other way from a planned pace to the treadmill speed you should set, and rates an incline walk in METs. Example: 6 mph at 5% costs as much as running a level road at 8:32 per mile.
Reading the display as it is
- 6 mph at 0% is logged as a 10:00 mile, yet it costs what a 10:27 mile costs outside
- An 8% incline session at 6 mph looks like easy running and is really 7:41 effort
- A 12-3-30 walk gets filed as "just walking"
Reading it through the calculator
- Set 1% and the display pace equals road pace
- Know the level-road pace of every incline, from 0% to 10%
- See the walk as 8.3 METs, the same as a 13:14 mile jog
Setting it up in five boxes
- What to work out - a treadmill run as an outdoor pace, a planned outdoor pace as a treadmill speed, or an incline walk.
- Units - mph or km/h, whichever your treadmill shows. Paces follow the same choice: per mile or per km.
- Speed or pace - the speed from the display (decimals such as 6.5 are fine), or the planned pace in minutes and seconds.
- Incline - in percent, as the treadmill shows it, from 0 to 15.
- Workout time (optional) - minutes on the belt, for the distance, the climb in feet or meters and the road distance with the same effort. Then read the headline, the oxygen cost and the incline table.
How the outdoor equivalent is worked out
Two published results do the work. The American College of Sports Medicine gives the oxygen cost of running and walking on a treadmill, and a study by Andrew Jones and Jonathan Doust found the incline at which a treadmill costs what a road costs.
walking: VO2 = 0.1 × S + 1.8 × S × G + 3.5
S = speed in meters per minute, G = incline as a fraction (5% = 0.05), VO2 in ml/kg/min
Jones and Doust had nine trained runners do 6-minute runs at six speeds from about 6.5 to 11.2 mph, on the treadmill at 0, 1, 2 and 3% and on a level road, measuring oxygen uptake each time. A 1% incline matched the road across that whole range. The calculator takes the ACSM cost of your setting and finds the road speed that costs the same as the treadmill at 1%. The arithmetic reduces to one factor: outdoor speed = treadmill speed × (0.2 + 0.9 × G) / 0.209. At 1% the factor is exactly 1, at 0% it is 0.957, at 5% it is 1.172.
On the belt that is 3.00 mi and 792 ft of climb. The effort equals a level road at 8:32 per mile (7.0 mph), so the same half hour outside would cover 3.52 mi. Oxygen cost 42.9 ml/kg/min, 12.3 METs.
At 1% set 7.5 mph. On a flat belt you need 7.8 mph. Or slow the belt and add hill: 6.9 mph at 3%, 6.4 mph at 5%.
The walking equation gives 28.9 ml/kg/min, 8.3 METs, the cost of a level-road jog at 13:14 per mile (4.54 mph). In half an hour you cover 1.50 mi and climb 950 ft.
The walking equation weighs the incline twice as heavily as the running one (1.8 against 0.9), which is why a brisk walk up a steep belt can cost as much as an easy jog on the flat.
What each extra percent of incline is worth
One belt speed, 6 mph, and six inclines. The display pace never moves from 10:00 per mile; the outdoor equivalent does. The last two columns show how much more road the same 30 minutes would cover and how much the belt makes you climb.
| Incline | Display pace | Outdoor pace | Faster per mile | Extra road in 30 min | Climb in 30 min |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0% | 10:00 | 10:27 | 27 s slower | -0.13 mi | 0 ft |
| 1% | 10:00 | 10:00 | 0 s | 0.00 mi | 158 ft |
| 2% | 10:00 | 9:35 | 25 s | 0.13 mi | 317 ft |
| 3% | 10:00 | 9:12 | 48 s | 0.26 mi | 475 ft |
| 5% | 10:00 | 8:32 | 88 s | 0.52 mi | 792 ft |
| 8% | 10:00 | 7:41 | 139 s | 0.90 mi | 1267 ft |
So a flat belt quietly takes about 27 seconds a mile off the work, and between 1% and 5% every extra percent adds roughly 20 to 25 seconds a mile of effort at this speed. Past about 6% the stride becomes hill running and the level-road equivalent is an approximation.
Treadmill mph and incline to outdoor pace per mile
Rows are the speed on the display, columns the incline. Each cell is the level-road pace per mile with the same oxygen cost. The 1% column always repeats the treadmill pace.
| mph | 0% | 1% | 2% | 3% | 4% | 5% | 6% | 8% | 10% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 12:32 | 12:00 | 11:30 | 11:03 | 10:38 | 10:14 | 9:52 | 9:13 | 8:39 |
| 5.5 | 11:24 | 10:55 | 10:28 | 10:03 | 9:40 | 9:18 | 8:59 | 8:23 | 7:52 |
| 6 | 10:27 | 10:00 | 9:35 | 9:12 | 8:51 | 8:32 | 8:14 | 7:41 | 7:12 |
| 6.5 | 9:39 | 9:14 | 8:51 | 8:30 | 8:10 | 7:52 | 7:36 | 7:06 | 6:39 |
| 7 | 8:57 | 8:34 | 8:13 | 7:54 | 7:35 | 7:19 | 7:03 | 6:35 | 6:11 |
| 7.5 | 8:22 | 8:00 | 7:40 | 7:22 | 7:05 | 6:49 | 6:35 | 6:09 | 5:46 |
| 8 | 7:50 | 7:30 | 7:11 | 6:54 | 6:39 | 6:24 | 6:10 | 5:46 | 5:24 |
| 9 | 6:58 | 6:40 | 6:23 | 6:08 | 5:54 | 5:41 | 5:29 | 5:07 | 4:48 |
| 10 | 6:16 | 6:00 | 5:45 | 5:31 | 5:19 | 5:07 | 4:56 | 4:37 | 4:19 |
Planned pace to treadmill speed
The reverse direction: a pace from your plan for an outdoor run, and the speed to set. Speeds are rounded to 0.1 mph because treadmills step that way. With km/h chosen, the calculator does the same per kilometer.
| Outdoor pace | 0% | 1% | 2% | 3% | 5% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12:00 /mi | 5.2 | 5.0 | 4.8 | 4.6 | 4.3 |
| 11:00 /mi | 5.7 | 5.5 | 5.2 | 5.0 | 4.7 |
| 10:00 /mi | 6.3 | 6.0 | 5.8 | 5.5 | 5.1 |
| 9:00 /mi | 7.0 | 6.7 | 6.4 | 6.1 | 5.7 |
| 8:00 /mi | 7.8 | 7.5 | 7.2 | 6.9 | 6.4 |
| 7:00 /mi | 9.0 | 8.6 | 8.2 | 7.9 | 7.3 |
| 6:00 /mi | 10.5 | 10.0 | 9.6 | 9.2 | 8.5 |
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Calculator verified by the LiczGrupa.pl team
Content, formulas and results have been reviewed for accuracy and relevance by our team of specialists.
Reviewed by: Patryk Matyjasik