Swim Pace Calculator

Getting your pace takes three quick steps. The tool does one division, so the answer is exact for the swim you enter, with no guessing about turns or rest.

1. Enter the distance you swam in the first field, then pick metres or yards. A standard pool length is 25 m or 25 yd, so count your lengths and multiply.
2. Enter your total time as minutes and seconds, for example 6 minutes and 40 seconds for a 400 m time trial.
3. Press Calculate, or press Enter. Your pace per 100 m appears first and large, with your pace per 100 yd, your speed and your projected 400 m and 1500 m times below. Press Reset to clear the form and start over.

The swim pace formula is pace per 100 m = total time in seconds divided by (distance in metres divided by 100). Each part means one thing, and the units must match before you divide.

Total time is your whole swim in seconds, so 6 minutes 40 seconds becomes 400 seconds. Distance is the whole swim in metres, so a 400 m swim has 4 lengths of 100 m. Divide 400 by 4 and the pace is 100 seconds, which is 1:40.0 per 100 m.

For yards, convert first, because 1 yard is 0.9144 m. A 400 yd swim is 365.76 m, so it has 3.6576 lengths of 100 m. The same idea gives pace per 100 yd, which is the metre pace multiplied by 0.9144, because 100 yd is shorter than 100 m. Our running pace calculator uses the same idea for pace per kilometre and per mile.

A swimmer finishes 400 m in 6 minutes 40 seconds. Here is exactly what the calculator does.

1. Convert the time to seconds: 6 x 60 + 40 = 400 seconds.
2. Count the 100 m lengths: 400 / 100 = 4.
3. Divide: 400 / 4 = 100 seconds per 100 m, which is 1:40.0.
4. Convert to yards: 100 x 0.9144 = 91.44 seconds, which is 1:31.4 per 100 yd. Speed is 400 / 400 = 1.00 m/s, or 3.6 km/h.

As a second check, 1500 m in 30:00 is 1800 seconds divided by 15, which is 120 seconds, or 2:00.0 per 100 m. The same steps work for any distance, so try your own swim in the tool above.

Pace per 100 m is the number swimmers trade when they compare swims, because it works for any distance. The table below is a rough guide for freestyle, taken from the pace bands used by swim training sites. It is not an official standard, and your stroke changes it a lot.

At 1:40.0 per 100 m, the worked example sits at the fast end of strong recreational. A pace of 2:00 per 100 m is a steady intermediate swim, and a pace under 1:20 per 100 m is club standard. Breaststroke and backstroke paces run slower than freestyle at the same effort, so compare like with like.

Metres and yards look close, but they are not the same, and mixing them up makes a pace look faster than it is. One yard is 0.9144 m, so 100 yd is 91.44 m, about 8.6 percent shorter than 100 m. A pace of 1:40.0 per 100 m is 1:31.4 per 100 yd at the same speed, so the yard number always reads lower.

To convert, multiply a metre pace by 0.9144 to get the yard pace, or divide a yard pace by 0.9144 to get the metre pace. This calculator shows both at once, so you can compare a pool swim in yards with an open water swim in metres without doing the conversion yourself. Always check which unit a training plan or a race result uses before you compare paces.

The projected 400 m and 1500 m times hold your pace flat, as if you swam every 100 m at exactly the same speed. That is a useful target, not a promise. Over a long swim most people slow down, because fatigue builds and turns cost time, and open water adds sighting, chop and a line that is never perfectly straight.

Use the projection to set a training target. If your 400 m time trial gives 1:40.0 per 100 m, a 1500 m projection of 25:00 is the time to aim at if you can hold that pace, and a realistic race time is usually a little slower. Time trials over 400 m give the most useful pace for projecting longer swims, because they are long enough to show your sustainable speed and short enough to repeat often. Our pace calculator and calories burned calculator help you plan the run and the energy side of the same session.