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Running calculator

VDOT calculator

Enter a recent race and get your VDOT plus the five Jack Daniels training paces — easy, marathon, threshold, interval, and repetition. Free, instant, no sign-up.

VDOT
43.4
Race held at 95% of VO2 max — 222.2 m/min

Your five training paces

Easy (E)
Most of your weekly volume. Conversational, aerobic, repeatable.
59–74% of VDOT
5:29–6:34
per km
Marathon (M)
Steady long-run effort and marathon goal pace.
75–84% of VDOT
4:57–5:25
per km
Threshold (T)
Comfortably hard tempo runs and cruise intervals.
83–88% of VDOT
4:46–5:00
per km
Interval (I)
Three-to-five-minute reps that stress VO2 max directly.
95–100% of VDOT
4:18–4:29
per km
Repetition (R)
Short, fast reps for speed, form, and running economy.
105–110% of VDOT
3:59–4:08
per km

Paces are the easy part — the coach decides how much of each you run this week.

What is VDOT?

VDOT is Jack Daniels' single number for running fitness. It looks like a VO2 max value but it isn't measured in a lab — it's read back from a race result, so it already includes your running economy. Two runners with the same lab VO2 max can have very different VDOTs, and the faster one wins the race.

How this calculator works

We use the Daniels & Gilbert equations. The oxygen cost of your race velocity is −4.60 + 0.182258·v + 0.000104·v², and the fraction of VO2 max you can hold for a race of t minutes is 0.8 + 0.1894393·e^(−0.012778·t) + 0.2989558·e^(−0.1932605·t). VDOT is the first divided by the second. Each training pace is then the velocity whose oxygen cost matches a percentage of your VDOT.

Using your VDOT paces

The point of VDOT is that every session gets a target instead of a feeling. Easy runs stay genuinely easy, threshold work stays under control, and intervals are fast enough to matter. Re-test after a race and the whole set of paces moves together.