As many of these are local events to help raise money for charity, you’ll find plenty of walkers and first time runners.Ĭheckout this first 5K training plan as a good place to start training, leave your ego at home and learn what it’s like to get in to a running routine. The average 5K time varies wildly by the type of race. In your high school gym, that would be the equivalent to running 61 laps around the basketball court, lucky you if it’s a gym with multiple courts so you don’t need as many laps to put in the miles. It seems the answer now comes down to what makes the nicest round number that we can quickly say.ġ KM = 0.621371 How far is a 5K race in miles? That makes shorter races easy round numbers and in fact continues once you get in ultra races and running off road as well. Most races started on an international stage and the most common unit of measurement around the world is the metric system, which is to say kilometers. Why are some races in kilometers and others in miles? In fact, let’s break each of these down not only in miles, but in how long they could take to run. It’s important not to jump your mileage too quickly, so while you might get inspired watching some of the big marathons, remember they did A LOT of training to build up a body strong enough to withstand hours of running.

Let’s put these in to perspective and breakdown the kilometers in to miles for those of us who don’t often use the metric system ( cough, just the United States). Whether you’ve just started running or you’re looking for a new challenge, you might be wondering just how far certain races really are and what’s a good time.

Download marathon in miles