What is a good running pace for a beginner?

Most beginners run somewhere between 11 and 14 minutes per mile (about 7 to 9 minutes per kilometer). The best pace for you is the one where you can speak in full sentences. If that's 15 minutes a mile, that's your pace, and it's a good one.

Pace is the number beginners obsess over and it's the least useful one early on. It varies with the heat, the hills, how well you slept and whether it's the first run of the week. What matters is the effort.

Use effort, not numbers

Try the talk test:

• Easy: you can talk in full sentences without gasping
• Moderate: you can talk in short phrases
• Hard: you can say a word or two

Beginners should spend nearly all their running time in the first group. Most of the common problems new runners have, like getting out of breath quickly, come from living in the second or third.

Rough pace ranges

These are loose and vary a lot by age and build:

• Very new, run/walk: 13 to 16 minutes per mile
• A few months in: 11 to 13 minutes per mile
• After a year of regular running: 9 to 11 minutes per mile

A 30 minute 5K is a 9:40 mile pace, which is a decent goal after some months, though plenty of people never need to hit it to enjoy running.

Slower than walking?

If your jog is barely faster than your walk, that's fine. Many people find a slow jog uses a similar effort to a fast walk, and it still builds the habit and the fitness. Speed tends to follow without you aiming for it.

Because League of Fitness scores runs from Apple Health by heart rate zones, a slow talk-test run is counted for the effort it takes, not the pace. You're matched daily with someone near your level, so an easy jog is a legitimate way to compete early on.

When to care about pace

Once you've been running consistently for a couple of months, you can begin to use pace as a way of tracking progress. Compare the same route over time. If the same loop gets 30 seconds per mile faster at the same effort, you're improving. Until then, I'd turn the pace display off.