Swim pace chart

How swim pace works

Swim pace is given per 100, not per kilometer or mile. To get a finish time, multiply that pace by the number of hundreds in the swim. A 1500 m swim has fifteen hundreds, so 1:40 per 100 m becomes 15 × 1:40, which is 25:00.

The charts below do that multiplication for every 10-second step from 1:00 to 3:00. Each pace is a multiple of 10 seconds, so every finish time in them comes out exact. Paces between the rows can need rounding, which the calculator does to the nearest second.

Reading the charts

Start from the pace you can hold for a continuous swim, not your best single 100. Find it in the left column and read across. Working from a target time instead? Look down the right distance column, find the time, and the pace is at the start of that row.

Paces between two rows scale evenly. Every extra 10 seconds per 100 adds 40 seconds to a 400 m, 2:30 to a 1500 m and 6:20 to a 3800 m. In yards it adds 50 seconds to a 500 and 2:45 to a 1650.

The shaded rows fall every 30 seconds. They make useful landmarks when scanning down a long column.

Meters vs yards pools

Pools come in three common lengths: 25 m, 50 m and 25 yd. Yard pools are mostly found in the United States. A yard is 0.9144 m, so 100 yd is 91.44 m, a bit under 100 m.

That gap matters when you switch pools. Swim at the same speed in both and your pace per 100 yd reads faster than your pace per 100 m. A swimmer holding 2:00 per 100 m would see about 1:50 per 100 yd. Going the other way, 1:30 per 100 yd is about 1:38 per 100 m.

The calculator converts between the two with its unit toggle, so you can bring a yards pace into a meters plan without doing the sum yourself.

The distances in the charts

• 400 m: a common test swim, long enough to need pacing.
• 750 m: the swim leg of a sprint triathlon.
• 1500 m: the pool event and the Olympic-distance triathlon swim.
• 1900 m and 3800 m: the swim legs of half- and full-distance triathlons.
• 500, 1000 and 1650 yd: the freestyle distances that yards programs are built around.

Finding your own pace

If you don't know your pace yet, a timed 400 m is a simple place to start. Swim it at a steady, hard effort you could just about hold for the whole distance. Then divide the time by four.

Say the 400 m takes 7:20. That is 440 seconds over four hundreds, or 1:50 per 100 m. Find 1:50 in the meters chart and the row reads 27:30 for 1500 m and 1:09:40 for 3800 m.

Treat those longer figures with care. A pace you can hold for 400 m is usually quicker than one you can hold for 1500 m or more. That makes the longer columns of the row a best case. Repeat the test every few weeks in the same pool to see whether the pace is moving.

Using the chart for splits

At an even pace, every 100 takes the same time. That makes in-swim checking easy. At 1:40 per 100 m, you should pass 400 m at 6:40, 800 m at 13:20 and 1200 m at 20:00 on the way to 25:00.

A pace clock on the pool wall makes this simple. Note the clock when you push off, then check it every 100 or every 400. If you are a few seconds ahead early on, ease off rather than bank time. A swim that starts too fast tends to fade.

Real splits will never be perfectly even. Each push-off from the wall gives a short burst of speed, so the pool length changes the numbers. A 25 m pool has twice as many lengths per 100 as a 50 m pool, and so twice as many push-offs. The chart assumes none of this. It is a target to swim against, not a forecast.

Open water is different again. There are no walls to push off, and you have to sight, deal with chop and swim around other people. Pool pace is a starting point for open-water planning, not a promise.

Nothing on this page is coaching or medical advice; the charts are multiplication and nothing more. Swim where a lifeguard is on duty or with a partner, and never alone in open water. Before training hard, get a doctor's opinion where your heart or breathing is a concern, or while you are still recovering from illness.