Convert speed to pace programmatically using Ruby

Published: by Creative Commons Licence

I came across a problem while working on my little side project Strafforts (A Visualizer for Strava Estimated Best Efforts and Races), that how to convert speed (m/s in this case) to pace (min/km or min/mile) programmatically using Ruby.

Calculate time spend per distance (kilometre/mile)

Strava Activity API provides a field for athlete's average speed during this activity. It is a float number for meters per seconds (i.e. the unit of the speed is m/s).

For example, if the speed is 4 meters per seconds and the target pace unit is min/km. Then the first step is to find out how long does it take reach the target distance (one kilometre) with this speed.

This is simple math: 1000 / 4 = 250 (seconds).

If the target pace unit is min/mile (minutes per mile), then it's 1609.344 / 4 = 402.336 (seconds) for one mile.

Convert seconds to pace

The second step is to convert the total seconds used per distance into pace. Note that time is base 60, while meter is base 10.

minutes, seconds = 250.divmod(60)
puts "#{minutes}:#{seconds.round}" # Output: '4:10'

Complete solution

# Convert speed (m/s) to pace (min/mile or min/km) in the format of 'x:xx'
def convert_meters_per_second_to_pace(speed, unit = nil)
  if speed.nil? || speed == 0
    return ''
  end

  total_seconds = unit == 'mile' ? (1609.344 / speed) : (1000 / speed)
  minutes, seconds = total_seconds.divmod(60)
  seconds = seconds.round < 10 ? "0#{seconds.round}" : "#{seconds.round}"
  "#{minutes}:#{seconds}"
end

What about speed unit is mph or km/h?

The concept will be exactly the same:

  1. Figure out the time per distance.
  2. Convert time to pace.

For example, to convert 12 km/h to pace:

12 km/h is 12 kilometres (7.45645 miles) per 3600 seconds.
So it's 3600 / 12 = 300 (seconds per km), 3600 / 7.45645 = 482.803 (seconds per mile).
Then use the modulo logic above to convert seconds into pace, which is 5:00 min/km or 8:03 min/mile.