Pace management
Runners often talk about "mile times" and their speed in terms of minutes per mile. This is one of the most common ways that runners measure their improvement.
To take part in a measured mile challenge, it's a good idea to find a flat stretch of path or road on your running route and measure a one mile course. You could do this using a large-scale map or by driving round in your car using the "trip" milometer.
Measuring your performance over a mile course is a great way of testing yourself and setting small, manageable challenges. And, best of all, it will show how you are improving over the weeks, both in terms of speed and distances covered.
New runners
You will benefit from timing your running quite early on in your programme even if you are completely new to running. If you have been running for a couple of weeks and can keep up a good 30 minutes of constant effort, it's worth doing a timed mile even if you need to use a combination of walking and running to finish it.
Always start with five minutes of brisk walking to warm up before you get to your start point. Then, when you are ready, start your watch and set off round the course. Don't set off at a hard run or sprint - aim for an even pace throughout. Make sure you get no higher than six or seven on your perceived effort scale and don't be tempted to sprint for the finish line. At the end of the course, note your time and do at least five minutes of walking to warm down before having a good stretch.
More experienced runners
If you have been running for longer, you can run two or three miles at a time and just use a measured one mile stretch in the middle of this to measure your performance. You may want to select a circular mile-long course that you can run laps of, or plan a route that you can break into one, two or three mile sections using reference points such as corners, junctions or bridges as distance markers.
Some runners split all their runs into mile sections and time each section using the lap timer on a stopwatch. This is useful for motivation and for keeping a steady pace, but isn't essential.
One of the classic ways to measure mile times is with a two mile run in which you run for half a mile to warm up, time the next mile you run, and then jog the final half mile to cool down.
As your training progresses
As your fitness improves you will get faster over the short (one to two mile) distances and this is an excellent way to chart your progress. Your mile times over longer distances may not show the same improvement, but don't worry about this. You should expect that for longer distances your pace per mile is not going to be as quick as it is for shorter distances because your body becomes more tired the further you run. Your pace needs to slow slightly to allow you to keep running for longer distances.
As your training progresses, you may want to increase your distances and build up to running a longer race, such as a half marathon. It's important to pace yourself - for longer distances you will need to slow your pace so that you can keep going.
There are many different formulas that runners use to measure their mile time. One way of estimating how long it will take to run different distances is the four second rule. This rule is based on the theory that your time per 400m increases by four seconds with each extra 400m you add to your distance.
Runners often talk about "minutes per mile" - how long it takes them to run a mile, but the four-second rule is based on metres. When using the four-second rule, you will need to switch between metres and miles. So, it's useful to remember that a mile is 1,600m, or 1.6km.
So, progressing from running 400m to 800m will increase your 400m time by four seconds. Increasing from 800m to 1,600m (1 mile) will see your 400m time increase by a further eight seconds.
Publication date: June 2009
