Marathon Pace Calculators by Course

A flat marathon pace calculator assumes every kilometre costs the same effort, so it just slices your goal time into identical splits. Real courses don’t work that way. Climbing a hill burns more energy than the road gives back on the descent, so running a course at even effort means running uneven pace — slower up, a little faster down, steady on the flats. Each page here runs the course’s real elevation profile through a Minetti-based grade-adjusted-pace (GAP) engine, so the splits reflect the climbs and drops you’ll actually meet, plus a race-day heat estimate for the month you’ll run it.

That matters because the five Majors run nothing alike. Boston drops a net ~140 m from Hopkinton but stacks the Newton Hills — Heartbreak near mile 20.5 — exactly where your legs are emptiest. Berlin is flat, sea-level and fast, the perennial world-record course. Chicago is flatter still — a loop that starts and finishes at the same height. London rolls gently net-downhill with no decisive climb. New York City opens and closes over bridges, with the Verrazzano and the Queensboro framing the hardest pacing decisions of the day. Pick your race below for splits built for that course, not a generic one. These are estimates from public formulas, not coaching advice.