The Pace Calculator is a utility for figuring running speed, or the pace at which anything moves, whether you're bicycling, driving, or horseback riding. Input the distance and the time in hours, minutes, and seconds, and get a speed calculation plus a detailed output of pace rates for many standards units of measure and distances.
Your speed is simply how fast you're traveling, as would be shown in the speedometer on your car. Your pace, on the other hand, is the amount of time you'd need to cover a given distance.
For example, let's say you cover an 8-mile jog in an hour and a half. This puts your speed at a stately 5.33 MPH (miles per hour). Your pace is 11 minutes and 15 seconds per mile or 6 minutes and 59 seconds per kilometer. This is actually the average jogging speed for a fit adult.
We humans are pretty quick on our feet relative to most other species, but that's not the area we specialize in. The fastest world record holder is Olympic competitor Usain Bolt, with a running speed of 27 MPH. Even a domestic cat can top that at 30 MPH, while several big cat land predators clock in at 55 MPH (African lion) to 72 MPH (cheetah).
What sets humans apart is our endurance. A human can keep going mile after mile, while that fast-sprinting cheetah is exhausted after 1500 feet. Even a greyhound, specifically bred for competitive running, will tire after 7 miles. Humans have unbelievable stamina compared to everything else in the animal kingdom, and that's how we achieved to top of the food chain.
Most of our prey could easily dash away from our hunter-gatherer ancestors, but all the hunter would have to do is follow it for a mile and find it collapsed and panting, now helpless.
This is thanks to our unique bipedal walk, our relative lack of hair so sweating is more efficient, and our fatigue-resistant muscles. Even the most out-of-shape person can manage to cover ten miles without stopping, however slowly.
According to the Stanford University School of Medicine, jogging is effective at increasing lifespan and decreasing the effects of aging. It benefits the cardiovascular system, and fights obesity.
According to the National Cancer Institute, a regular jogging session or other kinds of aerobic exercise is effective at decreasing the risk of various cancers.
Jogging also helps prevent muscle and bone damage from aging, aids in weight loss, and has even been implicated to help fight mood disorders such as depression and anxiety. Outdoor jogging has been shown to have better benefits than jogging on a treadmill.
All these studies have been based on as little as one hour per week, or a jogging session of about 20 minutes three times per week, with the recommended speed being slow to average. So remember, it's not about how fast you go, although that's a good metric to measure your improved fitness.
Rather, it's simply doing it for a sufficient amount of time. Humans are built for persistence exercise, and when we deprive ourselves of it, our health suffers.
