Swimming / 001
Swim pace calculator
Pace per hundred, total time, distance — supply two and the third follows, in meters or yards, with every hundred split out.
Read the guide: finish times for every 10-second pace step, in meters and yards
Pace per 100
MetersSplits per 100
Finish| Distance | Cumulative time |
|---|
Next / Across the sports
The rest of
the race.
The arithmetic
Swim pace is quoted per hundred, so the sum is the total time divided by the number of hundreds you swam: pace = time ÷ (distance ÷ 100). Fifteen hundred meters in 25:00 is 1,500 seconds over fifteen hundreds, which is 100 seconds, displayed as 1:40 per 100 m. Turn it around and 1:40 per 100 m over 1,500 m is 100 × 15 = 1,500 seconds, back to 25:00.
Yards work identically against their own unit: 500 yd in 7:30 is 450 seconds over five hundreds, so 1:30 per 100 yd. Switching the toggle converts the numbers rather than relabeling them, because a yard is 0.9144 of a meter — the same swimming speed reads as a faster number per 100 yd than per 100 m, since a hundred yards is the shorter distance.
Rounding. Nothing is rounded until it reaches the screen, and then only to the nearest second — a half second rounds up. Each hundred is worked out straight from the exact pace, not by stacking one rounded split on the last, so a long set cannot drift a few seconds off by the end.
What the splits do and do not tell you
The table divides your swim evenly, giving every hundred the same split. No real swim behaves that way. You are quickest in the first few meters off each wall, so a 25 m pool produces faster hundreds than a 50 m pool at the same effort simply because there are more push-offs in them. Open water removes the walls altogether and adds sighting, chop and whatever the current is doing, which is why pool pace and open-water pace are not the same measurement.
Use the splits as checkpoints to swim against, not as a forecast. If the first few hundreds are comfortably ahead of the table you went out too hard, which in swimming shows up as a stroke falling apart rather than legs giving way.
This page is arithmetic and nothing more. It knows nothing about your stroke, your fitness, the pool, or the water. Swimming carries risks that running does not: never swim alone in open water, and get medical advice before training hard if your heart or lungs are a concern, or if you are only just back from being unwell.
Common questions
What is a good swim pace per 100 m?
It depends on the distance and on how long you have been swimming, and stroke technique moves it far more than fitness does. As an orientation, many adult triathletes sit somewhere around two minutes per 100 m for a continuous swim, while competitive pool swimmers go well under ninety seconds. The useful comparison is against your own earlier sets over the same distance in the same pool.
Why is pace measured per 100 rather than per kilometer?
Because pools are built in lengths that divide neatly into a hundred. A 100 is two lengths of a 50 m pool, four of a 25 m, and four of a 25 yd — so the clock on the wall and the set written on the board both work in hundreds. Per kilometer would be an awkward unit to swim to.
How do meters and yards compare?
A yard is 0.9144 of a meter, so 100 yd is about 8.5 percent shorter than 100 m. Switching the toggle converts both the distance and the pace, which is why a pace of 1:40 per 100 m becomes roughly 1:31 per 100 yd for the same swimming speed. Your time for a set distance does not change — only the unit it is quoted in.
Do these splits account for turns and push-offs?
No. This divides the total evenly, so every hundred shows the same split. A real swim is faster off each wall and slower as the set goes on, and a short-course pool with more turns per hundred is quicker than a long-course one at identical effort. Treat the table as checkpoints to aim at rather than a prediction of what the clock will read.
Which distances are the presets?
In meters: 400, 750, 1500, 1900 and 3800, which covers a standard pool test set, the sprint triathlon swim, the classic 1500, the middle-distance triathlon leg and the full-distance one. In yards: 500, 1000 and 1650, the distances American pool programs are usually written around. Any other figure can be typed in directly.