Question 1

What is age grading?

Accepted Answer

Age grading turns a race time into a percentage of the standard for someone of your age and sex at that distance. The standard is the best performance the sport has on record at that age, so 100% is world-best territory. It lets performances be compared across ages and distances. A 24-year-old running 19:00 for 5K and a 62-year-old running 23:00 are both running at about 75%, and no results sheet would ever tell you that.

Question 2

How does age grading work?

Accepted Answer

Your age, your sex and the distance select one standard time from a published table. Your age grade is that standard divided by your actual time, times 100. A 47-year-old woman running 48:30 for 10K is measured against a standard of 31:35, which gives 65.12%. Nothing is weighted or smoothed on top. The whole method is one division, and all the work sits in the tables behind it.

Question 3

What is a good age grade?

Accepted Answer

By rough convention, 60% is the local standard, 70% the regional standard, 80% the national standard and 90% the world standard. You will also see these written as "local class", "regional class" and so on, which means the same thing. Most club runners who train consistently land somewhere between 55% and 70%. The number is at its most useful against your own previous results, and against clubmates of other ages.

Question 4

Why is my age grade different from the one on my parkrun result?

Accepted Answer

parkrun does not publish the table it uses. It comes from WMA factors, but an older edition than the 2025 road standards we use, so the two figures are close and rarely identical. We checked ours against a full field of 421 finishers at Winchester parkrun. For men aged 35 and over the two agree to within about 0.1 of a percentage point. Women read roughly 1.5 to 3 points lower here, and juniors and runners in their twenties up to 3 points either way. Those are the ages where the 2025 tables moved. The women's open 5K standard is now 13:54 where parkrun still uses 14:48. Neither figure is wrong. They are the same division against different reference tables, and ours says which table it is.

Question 5

How reliable is age grading for juniors?

Accepted Answer

Less reliable than for adults, and it is worth knowing why. The tables run from age 5, so a junior does get a number, but the junior end is the weakest part of them. Two 15-year-olds with identical training can perform very differently depending on when they mature, so a youth factor describes a population and not a person. The sources behind the junior factors have also been questioned. Treat a junior grade as a rough indication, and compare it with the same runner six months later rather than with a clubmate. No governing body publishes a continuous age-grade scale for juniors. England Athletics and the English Schools AA publish entry standards instead, which is a mark to beat for each event and age group.

Question 6

What are the England Athletics entry standards shown with some results?

Accepted Answer

Where your run is close to one, we show the qualifying time for the England Athletics national championships next to your age grade. It answers a firmer question than a percentage does. Is this fast enough to enter? The figures are the 2026 outdoor championship entry standards. The year matters, because they are revised every season. Only three events overlap the tables we grade against, at 1500m, 3000m and 5000m, and England Athletics will accept a road 5000m time for the 5000m standard. There is an 800m entry standard as well. We cannot show it, because the WMA track table starts at 1500m and has no 800m factor to put beside it.

Question 7

Does age grading favour older runners?

Accepted Answer

It is not meant to, and mostly it does not. The standards are built from the best performances actually recorded at each age, so they reflect what the very best runner of that age has genuinely done. Where the data thins out, at the oldest ages and the longest distances, fewer performances sit behind the standard and a grade there rests on a smaller sample. That is a limit of the evidence and not a thumb on the scale.

Question 8

What about trail, fell and cross country?

Accepted Answer

There are no age-grading tables for off-road running. A trail or cross-country time graded here is measured against the nearest road standard, and we flag it as approximate when you tell us the course was off-road. Terrain, climb and underfoot conditions vary far too much between off-road courses for one standard to mean anything. Treat the number as a rough indication and compare off-road runs only with other runs on the same course.

Question 9

Which age-grading tables do you use?

Accepted Answer

For road running, the 2025 WMA/USATF road running age standards. They were approved on 10 January 2025 by the Masters Long Distance Running Council of USA Track and Field, sanctioned by World Masters Athletics, and compiled by Alan L. Jones and Rex Harvey with single-age bests by Tom Bernhard. They are published under a CC0 public-domain dedication. For track we use the WMA track standards, which are the 2005 edition for men and 2006 for women. Nothing has revised them since, because every revision since has covered road running. Many calculators still run the 2015 or 2020 road tables without saying so.

Question 10

How do you handle a distance that is not in the tables?

Accepted Answer

We derive it, using the tables' own method. The source builds standards for four base distances, at 5K, 10K, half marathon and marathon, then produces most of its other 18 published distances by interpolating between them on a natural-log distance scale. We use that same method, so for anything between 5K and the marathon the figure we show is the tables' figure and not an estimate of it. Below 5K it is a genuine interpolation, because the one-mile standard comes from a separate source. Either way the result says "derived", so you know it was not printed in the tables. It also means a 4.7-mile club handicap grades properly, and club races are almost never a standard distance.

Question 11

Do I need an account?

Accepted Answer

No. There is nothing to sign up for, nothing to pay and no email address to hand over. If your club runs on RunClub HQ then every result the club records is age graded automatically and feeds the club standings and standards tables. That is a separate thing. This calculator is free to everyone either way.

Age	Local 60%	Regional 70%	National 80%	World best 100%
5	33:33	28:46	25:10	20:08
6	32:05	27:30	24:04	19:15
7	30:47	26:23	23:05	18:28
8	29:38	25:24	22:14	17:47
9	28:38	24:33	21:29	17:11
10	27:45	23:47	20:49	16:39
11	26:57	23:06	20:13	16:10
12	26:15	22:30	19:41	15:45
13	25:37	21:57	19:13	15:22
14	25:03	21:29	18:48	15:02
15	24:33	21:03	18:25	14:44
16	24:05	20:39	18:04	14:27
17	23:37	20:14	17:43	14:10
18	23:17	19:57	17:28	13:58
19	23:10	19:51	17:23	13:54
20	23:10	19:51	17:23	13:54
21	23:10	19:51	17:23	13:54
22	23:10	19:51	17:23	13:54
23	23:10	19:51	17:23	13:54
24	23:10	19:51	17:23	13:54
25	23:10	19:51	17:23	13:54
26	23:10	19:51	17:23	13:54
27	23:10	19:51	17:23	13:54
28	23:12	19:53	17:24	13:55
29	23:13	19:54	17:25	13:56
30	23:15	19:56	17:26	13:57
31	23:18	19:59	17:29	13:59
32	23:23	20:03	17:33	14:02
33	23:28	20:07	17:36	14:05
34	23:33	20:11	17:40	14:08
35	23:40	20:17	17:45	14:12
36	23:47	20:23	17:50	14:16
37	23:55	20:30	17:56	14:21
38	24:03	20:37	18:03	14:26
39	24:13	20:46	18:10	14:32
40	24:23	20:54	18:18	14:38
41	24:35	21:04	18:26	14:45
42	24:47	21:14	18:35	14:52
43	25:00	21:26	18:45	15:00
44	25:15	21:39	18:56	15:09
45	25:32	21:53	19:09	15:19
46	25:48	22:07	19:21	15:29
47	26:05	22:21	19:34	15:39
48	26:22	22:36	19:46	15:49
49	26:40	22:51	20:00	16:00
50	26:58	23:07	20:14	16:11
51	27:17	23:23	20:28	16:22
52	27:35	23:39	20:41	16:33

Age	Local 60%	Regional 70%	National 80%	World best 100%
53	27:55	23:56	20:56	16:45
54	28:15	24:13	21:11	16:57
55	28:35	24:30	21:26	17:09
56	28:55	24:47	21:41	17:21
57	29:17	25:06	21:58	17:34
58	29:38	25:24	22:14	17:47
59	30:02	25:44	22:31	18:01
60	30:23	26:03	22:48	18:14
61	30:47	26:23	23:05	18:28
62	31:12	26:44	23:24	18:43
63	31:37	27:06	23:43	18:58
64	32:02	27:27	24:01	19:13
65	32:28	27:50	24:21	19:29
66	32:55	28:13	24:41	19:45
67	33:23	28:37	25:03	20:02
68	33:52	29:01	25:24	20:19
69	34:20	29:26	25:45	20:36
70	34:50	29:51	26:08	20:54
71	35:22	30:19	26:31	21:13
72	35:53	30:46	26:55	21:32
73	36:27	31:14	27:20	21:52
74	37:00	31:43	27:45	22:12
75	37:35	32:13	28:11	22:33
76	38:12	32:44	28:39	22:55
77	38:48	33:16	29:06	23:17
78	39:28	33:50	29:36	23:41
79	40:13	34:29	30:10	24:08
80	41:05	35:13	30:49	24:39
81	42:00	36:00	31:30	25:12
82	43:03	36:54	32:18	25:50
83	44:12	37:53	33:09	26:31
84	45:28	38:59	34:06	27:17
85	46:55	40:13	35:11	28:09
86	48:32	41:36	36:24	29:07
87	50:18	43:07	37:44	30:11
88	52:20	44:51	39:15	31:24
89	54:38	46:50	40:59	32:47
90	57:15	49:04	42:56	34:21
91	1:00:15	51:39	45:11	36:09
92	1:03:43	54:37	47:48	38:14
93	1:07:45	58:04	50:49	40:39
94	1:12:30	1:02:09	54:23	43:30
95	1:18:10	1:07:00	58:38	46:54
96	1:25:02	1:12:53	1:03:46	51:01
97	1:33:30	1:20:09	1:10:08	56:06
98	1:44:13	1:29:20	1:18:10	1:02:32
99	1:58:08	1:41:16	1:28:36	1:10:53
100	2:16:55	1:57:21	1:42:41	1:22:09

Age grade	Standard	What it means
90%+	World standard	100% is the world best for that age and sex, so 90% is genuinely near it.
80%+	National standard	Competitive at a national championship in your age group.
70%+	Regional standard	Sharp end of a county or regional race.
60%+	Local standard	A strong club runner. Consistent training tends to land here.
Under 60%	—	The convention names nothing here, so neither do we. Compare with your own number last season.

parkrun age grade calculator

What is a good parkrun time for your age?

Standards for every distance

What age grading actually is

The four standards

Which tables, and when

Where to go next

Age grading, answered

Every result your club records, graded automatically.