What this page does
A cadence calculator answers a question that has exactly one answer: at a given pace, how many steps per minute, and how long is each step. The three quantities are locked together by definition — speed is cadence multiplied by stride length — so any two of them fix the third. This page takes the two you have and returns the third, plus the pace in both units, the speed, the steps to the kilometre and a table of what a cadence change does at the same pace.
No other page on this site does this. The race pace calculator converts between pace, finish time and distance and never asks how many steps you take. The running split calculator prints a clock at every marker. The running calorie calculator prices the energy of the distance. The treadmill pages convert a belt speed. None of them carries cadence or stride length, and this page carries nothing else.
Everything runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to a server, there is no account and no upload, and the numbers never leave the page. The arithmetic is one identity and its three rearrangements, written up below.
How the numbers are calculated
Two definitions carry the whole page. Cadence is steps per minute. Stride length is the distance covered by one step, in metres. A runner taking c steps a minute, each s metres long, covers c × s metres a minute. That is the definition of average speed, not a model of running:
v = c × s (metres per minute)
Pace is the same number written upside down, in seconds per kilometre. One kilometre is 1000 m, and one minute is 60 s, so the seconds per kilometre at speed v metres per minute are 1000 × 60 ÷ v:
p = 60000 ÷ (c × s)
The other two answers are that one equation solved for the other letter. Nothing else changes:
s = 60000 ÷ (c × p) c = 60000 ÷ (s × p)
- c — cadence, steps per minute, 100 to 260.
- s — stride length, metres per step, 0.30 to 3.00. Distance per step, not per cycle.
- p — pace, seconds per kilometre. The 60000 is 1000 m × 60 s.
- 1 km = 1000 m and 1 mile = 1609.344 m exactly, the international mile fixed by the 1959 yard and pound agreement. So seconds per mile = p × 1.609344. A definition, not a measurement.
A worked example: 5:00 per kilometre at 180 steps per minute
With p = 300 s and c = 180, the stride is 60000 ÷ (180 × 300) = 60000 ÷ 54000 = 1.1111 m, printed 1.11. The speed is 180 × 1.1111 = 200 m per minute, which is 3.3333 m/s or 12.00 km/h. Steps to the kilometre are 180 × (300 ÷ 60) = 900, and 4,500 to 5 km. The pace per mile is 300 × 1.609344 = 482.8032 s, printed 8:03. Against a 175 cm height the stride is 1.1111 ÷ 1.75 = 0.63.
The other two directions, on the same numbers. A 1.10 m stride at 5:00 per kilometre needs 60000 ÷ (1.10 × 300) = 181.8 steps per minute. And 170 steps per minute at a 1.20 m stride is 60000 ÷ (170 × 1.20) = 294.1176 s per kilometre, printed 4:54, which is 7:53 per mile and 12.24 km/h. Type any of those pairs into the tool and the page prints the same three numbers.
The cadence table, and how to read it
The table above holds ten cadences from 155 to 200 steps per minute against five common paces per kilometre, with the stride length each pair needs in metres. The row nearest the cadence you typed is highlighted, so the table answers the neighbouring questions without any typing.
It reads in two directions and both are exact. Down a column, the pace is fixed, so stride is 60000 ÷ (cadence × pace): raising the cadence shortens the stride in exact inverse proportion. Across a row, the cadence is fixed, so a slower pace means a shorter stride in exact proportion to the pace. Every cell is the same division as the tool, done on a fixed pair of numbers — there is no lookup table, no fitting and no rounding until the last step.
The 180 row at 5:00 is the worked example above: 1.11 m. The 200 row at 4:30 is 1.11 m too, which is worth noticing: a higher cadence and a faster pace can need the same stride, because the two effects cancel.
What a cadence change does at a fixed pace
Hold the pace and change the cadence, and the stride has to move the other way. From s = 60000 ÷ (c × p) with p fixed, the stride is inversely proportional to the cadence: going from 180 to 190 steps per minute multiplies the cadence by 190 ÷ 180 = 1.0556 and the stride by 180 ÷ 190 = 0.9474, which is 5.26 per cent shorter. The pace does not change, because the extra steps are shorter by exactly the amount the cadence went up.
The table above prints four such rows for the cadence you typed: +2, +5, +10 and +15 steps per minute, with the stride each one needs at the same pace, in metres, in centimetres and in per cent.
This is arithmetic, not coaching. The page does not say whether a cadence is right for you, whether to change it, or how — that is a training decision, and this site is a calculator, not a training plan. It says nothing about injury either: whether a cadence change helps or hurts is a clinical question, and this site does not take medical or injury questions.
Stride length in body-heights
The height box does one division: stride length divided by height. A 1.11 m stride on a 175 cm runner is 0.63, and the same stride on a 160 cm runner is 0.69. That makes the ratio a way of putting two runs or two runners on the same footing, which is all it is used for here.
It is not used to predict a stride length from a height. A conversion from height alone to stride length needs a coefficient between the two — stature, leg length, and how far a runner extends — and this page has no source it can stand behind for that coefficient. Rather than ship a made-up one it prints the ratio and leaves the prediction out.
Supported range and limits
- Cadence: 100 to 260 steps per minute. Whole steps are what a watch reports; a decimal is accepted and printed back.
- Stride length: 0.30 to 3.00 metres per step.
- Pace: 2:00 to 20:00 per kilometre, or 3:13 to 32:11 per mile. Outside that the answer is refused rather than extrapolated.
- Height: 100 to 250 cm, optional. A height outside that range blanks the ratio and leaves the rest of the page working.
- Rounding: pace to the nearest second, stride and speed to two decimals, the ratio to two decimals, and cadence to the nearest whole step when it lands within 0.05 of one and to one decimal otherwise. One rounding, at the end, never halfway through a chain.
- Cost: none. No account, no email, no paywall, no daily limit, no request to a server.
- Privacy: every number is computed in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere or stored — reload the page and it is gone.
- Works offline once the page has loaded, and on a phone.
What this page deliberately does not do
- No training plan and no cadence prescription. No sessions, no intervals, no durations, no weekly volume, no programme, and no advice on which cadence to run. The about page says it in one line: this is a calculator, not a training plan.
- No injury or medical claim. Nothing here says a cadence is good, bad, safe or risky for you. This site does not take medical or injury questions.
- No grade. No cadence is labelled good, bad, normal or high on this page. That would need cut-points with an outcome behind them, and this page has none.
- No stride length from a height. The height box divides; it does not predict. The reason is in the section above.
- No measurement and no device. Nothing is counted, imported or synced. The number you type is taken at face value, so a watch that counts steps differently will disagree with this page and the page has no way to know it.
- No heart-rate model. Cadence is not read from, and not converted into, a heart rate anywhere on this page.
- No race prediction. Turning a recent race result into a finish time is the race time predictor on the home page.
- No treadmill conversion. A belt speed into an outdoor pace is the treadmill pace conversion, and the version that prices an incline is the treadmill pace calculator.
Questions
How do I work out my stride length from my pace and cadence?
Divide 60000 by the product of your cadence and your pace in seconds per kilometre. At 180 steps per minute and 5:00 per kilometre, that is 60000 divided by 54000, which is 1.11 metres per step. The 60000 is 1000 metres times 60 seconds, so the answer comes out in metres when the pace is in seconds per kilometre.
What is a good cadence to run at?
This page does not answer that, and it prints no target. It converts between cadence, stride length and pace, and all three numbers it shows are yours, not a standard. Calling a cadence good or bad needs a threshold with an outcome behind it, and this page has none.
How many steps is 180 steps per minute over a kilometre?
It depends on the pace, because steps per kilometre is cadence multiplied by the minutes the kilometre takes. At 5:00 per kilometre, 180 steps per minute is 180 times 5, which is 900 steps to the kilometre and 4500 to 5 km. At 4:00 per kilometre the same cadence is 720 steps to the kilometre.
Does a higher cadence mean a shorter stride?
At a fixed pace, yes, and the two move in exact inverse proportion. A rise from 180 to 190 steps per minute at 5:00 per kilometre takes the stride from 1.11 metres to 1.05 metres, which is 5.26 per cent shorter. The pace is unchanged, because the extra steps are shorter by exactly the amount the cadence went up.
Is stride length the same as step length?
On this page, yes. Stride length here means one step: the distance from one foot landing to the other foot landing next, in metres. Some books call a full cycle of two steps a stride and one step a step. If your source counts a cycle, halve the number before you type it here.
Can I get my stride length from my height?
Not from this page. A conversion from height alone to stride length needs a coefficient this page has no source for, so it prints the ratio instead: stride length divided by height. A 1.11 metre stride on a 175 centimetre runner is 0.63.
Why does my watch show a different cadence from this number?
This page does not measure anything, so it cannot disagree with your watch: it converts the number you type. If the two differ, one of them is counting something different, and this page has no way to know which. It applies no correction and no calibration to a cadence or to a stride length.
What pace is 170 steps per minute at a 1.20 metre stride?
60000 divided by 170 times 1.20 is 294.1 seconds per kilometre, printed 4:54, which is 7:53 per mile and 12.24 km/h. Type those two numbers in the third mode and the page returns the same pace.