You can use a number of methods to determine your walking speed using simple calculations. With a car odometer or pedometer and a watch, you can quickly learn how fast you're walking. Walking faster helps you burn more calories per minute by raising your heart rate. Lowering your speed lets you walk longer, helping you improve your cardiovascular stamina and muscular endurance so you can increase your calorie burn as you get in better shape.
Base Your Walking Speed on Miles Walked
Step 1
Drive your car along the route you intend to walk, tracking the distance with your odometer. Create a route that is a distance you can easily measure in miles, rather than one that ends in a fraction such as .2 or .3. This will help you quickly make the mathematical calculations you need to determine your speed in miles per hour.
Step 2
Purchase or borrow a pedometer, which is a device that measures the distance you walk based on the number of steps you take, if you can't use a car to measure your route. Pedometers that take into account your height and stride length are the most accurate; those that don't can be very inaccurate. Test your pedometer against a route you measure with your car odometer to see how accurate it is so you can adjust your calculations for future walks.
Step 3
Calculate the number of steps you take in 1 mile as an alternate method of calculating your course distance. Measure how many steps you take walking 1 yard. A mile is 1,760 yards. If you take three steps per yard, you will take 5,280 steps per mile.
Step 4
Walk your course, noting your start and finish times. Record your time after each mile and at your halfway point to create timed splits. Don't rely on your doubling your first-half results to provide accurate walking speeds for the entire walk. The first half of your course may be downhill, for example, and you'll be more tired during the second half of your walk.
Step 5
Take the number of minutes it took to walk 1 mile and calculate your speed. Divide 60 by the number of minutes it took you to walk 1 mile. If it took you 20 minutes to walk one mile, you walked at 3 mph, or 60 divided by 20. If you walk a mile in 15 minutes, divide 60 by 15 to get a walking speed of 4 mph. Alternately, divide the number of minutes you walked 1/2 mile by 30.
Tips and Warnings
- Choose a pace you feel you can maintain for 30 minutes or more without stopping. MayoClinic.com estimates that a 160-lb. person will burn 183 calories walking for 1 hour at a speed of 2 mph, 277 calories per hour at 3.5 mph. Increase your calorie burn by walking routes with hills and by jogging down them. This will change your per-hour walking time as you walk more slowly up steep hills and add several minutes of jogging downhill.
Things You'll Need
- Car odometer
- Pedometer
- Measuring tape
- Watch
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