How to calculate your average pace across multiple hikes
The average pace across several hikes is not the average of their individual pace figures â it is total distance divided by total moving time, added up across every hike first and only divided once at the end. Averaging the pace numbers themselves gives every hike equal say regardless of how long it was, which quietly tilts the result toward whichever hikes were shortest.
The short answer
Add up the distance from every hike, add up the moving time from every hike, then divide the one total by the other. That single division is the average pace across the whole set. It is the same arithmetic that gives the average pace for one hike â total distance over total moving time â just run once over a pile of hikes instead of once over a single walk.
Why averaging the pace figures themselves goes wrong
Say one hike covered 3 km in 30 minutes, a pace of 10 minutes per kilometre, and another covered 12 km in 3 hours, a pace of 15 minutes per kilometre. Add those two pace figures and divide by two and the answer is 12.5 minutes per kilometre. But look at what actually happened: 15 km covered in 3 hours and 30 minutes, which works out to exactly 14 minutes per kilometre.
The gap between 12.5 and 14 is not rounding error â it is the short hike getting exactly the same vote as the long one, even though the long hike is four times the distance and stretched over six times the time. A pace-of-paces average treats every hike as one unit no matter how much walking is actually inside it, so a handful of short, brisk outings can drag a per-hike average toward a faster number than the time you actually spent moving would support.
The same trap in the other direction
It works the other way too. A stack of short, easy walks mixed with one long, slower day out will pull a pace-of-paces average toward the short walks' pace, making the whole set look brisker than the total time on your feet actually was. There is nothing wrong with any single hike's number â the distortion only shows up once several unequal hikes get averaged as if they were the same size.
Which time to add up
Moving time, not elapsed time, for the same reason a single hike's pace is built from moving time rather than the clock. Elapsed time includes any stretch spent stopped â a rest, a view, a wrong turn worked out on the map â and folding that into a multi-hike total would drag the combined pace toward "slower" for reasons that have nothing to do with how fast anyone was actually walking. Add up the moving time from each hike, not the elapsed time, before dividing.
Keeping units consistent
Distance has to be in the same unit across every hike before it goes into the total â all kilometres or all miles, not a mix, since a total that quietly blends the two will produce a pace that means nothing. The same goes for time: convert everything to minutes, or to hours, before adding, rather than trying to sum a mix of hours-and-minutes figures by eye.
Where TrailCam fits in
TrailCam records distance and moving time for every hike and can export the full history as a CSV file, with each hike as its own row. That is the easiest starting point for this kind of calculation â the distance and moving time columns can be summed directly in a spreadsheet, then divided once, rather than copying pace figures off individual hikes and averaging those. CSV export is part of the optional TrailCam Pro upgrade; the app itself is free to download.
Questions
- Is averaging several pace numbers ever close enough to the true average?
- It gets closer the more similar the hikes are in length. If every hike in the set covers roughly the same distance and moving time, a pace-of-paces average and a true distance-over-time average land near each other. The gap only opens up once the hikes vary a lot in size, because that is exactly when giving each hike equal weight starts to misrepresent how much walking it actually contributed.
- Does it matter whether I use kilometres or miles?
- No, as long as every hike in the total uses the same unit. Mixing units partway through the total â some hikes in kilometres, others in miles â will produce a distance total, and therefore a pace, that does not correspond to anything real.
- Should paused time count toward the total?
- No. The total time in this calculation should be moving time summed across every hike, the same way a single hike's own pace figure excludes paused time. Including elapsed time would count time spent standing still as if it were part of the pace being measured.
Recording your own routes
TrailCam is an iPhone app that records your route with GPS, keeps video clips, photos and voice notes pinned to the spot where you took them, and exports the result as GPX 1.1 or CSV. It is free to download.