Sub-2:45 Marathon Pace

A 2:45 marathon leaves almost no room to improvise. At this pace a single kilometre run ten seconds slow has to be repaid across the remaining distance, and the repayment gets harder the later it happens. Runners chasing this time usually know their pace by feel to within a couple of seconds per kilometre, because a watch that updates every kilometre is too coarse a signal to correct with.

The practical difficulty at 2:45 is not the pace itself, which is comfortably inside most club runners' half marathon speed, but holding it for twice as long. The gap between what you can run for 21.0975 km and what you can hold for 42.195 km is where this goal is won or lost, and the equivalent-times table further down shows exactly how the model expects those two to line up.

One thing worth checking against this page: aid stations. At this pace a fifteen-second stop costs more than a whole kilometre of the buffer you built in the first half. Runners at 2:45 usually plan their fuelling so they never come to a stop, and the checkpoint table below is what they check against as they pass each marker.

Checkpoint times for a 2:45:00 marathon

Checkpoints matter more here than anywhere else on this site, because there is no stretch of a 2:45 in which you can afford to be vague about where you are. Compare at 10 km and again at halfway, and treat anything faster than the figure below as a problem rather than a cushion.

What a fade costs

At this level a fade is rarely gradual. It arrives, and it arrives late. The table below puts a number on each version of it.

Every kilometre split for a 2:45:00 marathon

All 43 rows, ending on the final 195 metres so the last elapsed time is exactly 2:45:00 rather than close to it.

Every mile split for a 2:45:00 marathon

Many marathons mark both units. A mile marker arriving between two kilometre markers gives you an extra chance to check the plan without waiting for the next kilometre.

Equivalent race times

What a 2:45:00marathon implies at shorter distances, using Riegel's formula t2 = t1 x (d2 / d1) ^ 1.06. Projecting downwards like this is the more trustworthy direction, because marathon fitness generally implies you could run the shorter time. The methodology page sets out where the model stops being reliable.

Adjust the goal

If this is not quite your target, the neighbouring goals show what a step in either direction costs per kilometre, and the pace calculator will take any time you type in.

Frequently asked questions

Last reviewed 2026-08-05. Formulas, constants and sources: methodology. Changes to any calculation are logged in the changelog.