Cardio
Marathon Pace + Elevation Calculator
Turn a target race time on a hilly course into your average race pace and the flat-course pace that takes the same effort.
Result
Average vs flat-equivalent pace
Race-day pace vs the flat-course pace that takes the same effort.
The formula, worked through
- Formula Race-Week Taper Formula + Carb Loading (Burke)
Race-week taper formula: cut volume 41–60% over about 2 weeks while holding intensity and frequency (Bosquet 2007); performance usually improves about 3%.
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Articles
- 12 min read Marathon Pace and Elevation Adjustments
Marathon pace and elevation: a validated correction for total climb / descent — Strava grade-adjusted pace, Naismith's rule, where they break.
- 7 min read Marathon Pace on a Net-Downhill Course: A Boston-Style Walkthrough
Marathon pace math for a Boston-style profile: 145m gain, 290m loss, 200-minute target. The 4:44/km flat-equivalent split and where the model breaks.
- 8 min read The Minetti Curve: Why Downhill Running Is Cheap Then Brutal
How Minetti's 2002 J Appl Physiol paper defines energy cost across grades, where the eccentric load tax dominates, and the practical pacing rule.
Use it from an agent or code
Any agent can run this calculator by URL: put the inputs in the query string and get JSON back, with the inputs that used defaults and a line to cite (add format=md for markdown). MCP clients reach it through https://aifithub.io/mcp.
In code, import the same module; it runs where you import it, with no request or key.
import { compute } from "https://aifithub.io/engines/marathon-pace-elevation.js";Input and output contract, TypeScript types and the guide for agents.