What does pace mean?

I'm new to Garmin and can't figure out what the pace data represents.

I walked and had a pace of 12:47 /km

km/h wouldn't make sense, because 12 km/h would be too fast for walking.

What do the numbers mean?

egonallanon 8 points 2 years ago

Typically pace is measured in minutes per kilometre. So it measured you as taking 12 minutes 47 seconds to walk a kilometre.

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squirrel 3 points 2 years ago

Interesting. I wonder why they choose this format. I used a running-calculator now that converted it to 4.69 km/h, which is way easier to read and understand.

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gressen 4 points 2 years ago

It's a popular way to compare times in races. It is a bit more meaningful to compare total times than speeds.

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squirrel 3 points 2 years ago

I see. Thanks for the explanation. I might get used to this format eventually.

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PlantJam 3 points 2 years ago

It's also much easier to convert your race time to a pace by using this format. If I complete a 5k in 40 minutes, that's 40/5 = 8 minutes per kilometer.

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jerkface 2 points 2 years ago

Human rate of motion is usually expressed as pace rather than speed; they are reciprocals of each other.

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CodeMonkeyUK 1 point 2 years ago

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evasive_chimpanzee 2 points 2 years ago

One way to look at it is that "speed", in km/hr, is an instantaneous measure. As you walk, you speed up and slow down; maybe there are hills or something. That's not super useful to most people. What is useful is knowing "is this chunk of my walk/run slower or faster than the last chunk?". Someone running a 10k wants to know their average speed for each kilometer. Someone running or walking a shorter race might want finer splits, but it's convenient for comparison to still use 1 kilometer as the baseline because you have a better sense of what it feels like to walk a 12 minute km pace than a 6 minute half km pace, even if they are the same thing.

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