Two distances within reach. That's what the page told me after a 36:31 10K on a Wednesday evening in June. It was right on both counts, for reasons that flatter me on one and not at all on the other.
Targets to Beat is the page I open first after every race. It takes one result, assumes it was an honest full effort, and works out two things for every distance I've raced. What I could run there today. And what I'd have to run to top my own best age grade.
This is the first of a short series on reading the RaceRecords dashboards. It's written from my own numbers, because a dashboard is only interesting when the data is real.
What does Targets to Beat actually show?
One row per distance you've raced, and on each row three marks on a time axis. Your PR. Today's projected time from the seed race. And the time you'd need to beat your best age grade at that distance. The verdict on the right says how those last two compare.
So the page answers one question eight times over. If I raced this distance this weekend, in the shape my last race says I'm in, would I set an age-graded PR?
Slower is left, faster is right. The small dot is the PR. The ringed dot is the projection, with a shaded band behind it that runs from an optimistic to a conservative estimate. The diamond is the required time. When the projection sits to the right of the diamond, the row lights up. When it sits to the left, it doesn't.
Tap any mark and a popover explains it in plain words, with the actual numbers. Tap the row itself and the PR race opens.
The race that seeds the projections
Your most recent graded race, by default. Mine is the Zomeravondcup 4 in Utrecht on 10 June, a 10K in 36:31 at 80.0% age-graded. That's 3:39 per kilometre, and it was everything I had that evening.
That last part matters. The page assumes the seed race was a full effort at your current fitness. It has no way of knowing you jogged it with a friend or ran into a headwind for five kilometres. If the most recent race wasn't representative, switch it. Best Recent picks the highest age grade among your last five graded races on that surface. Other races lets you choose any of the five by hand.
Road and track are kept apart. A track 5000m can't seed a road marathon projection, and the other way round makes even less sense.
How are the projected times calculated?
From your actual time, using Riegel's 1981 endurance formula. Not from your age grade. The formula is short.
predicted time = your time × (target distance ÷ source distance) ^ 1.06
So my 36:31 10K becomes 2191 seconds × (5000 ÷ 10000) ^ 1.06, which is 1051 seconds. A 17:31 5K. Same fitness, half the distance, a shade over 3:30 per kilometre.
The exponent is where the endurance lives. At 1.0 you'd hold identical pace at any distance. At 1.06 you slow by about 4% each time the distance doubles, which is roughly how most runners fade. The shaded band behind each projection nudges that exponent slightly down and up, so you also see an optimistic and a conservative version. For my marathon that's 2:49:24 on the kind end and 2:56:53 on the honest one.
Holding the age grade constant instead would scale by the ratio of two world bests, and that ratio belongs to elite marathoners. I wrote about why that over-predicts the marathon in Equivalent Times Explained.
What is the required time?
The finish time that equals your best age grade, on the current tables, at the age you are today. Nothing more. It comes straight from the Alan Jones 2025 road factors that grade every race in the app, or WMA 2023 on the track tab.
Take my 10K row. The time PR is 35:17 at 80.1%. But the age-grade PR is a different race, a 35:26 run at age 45 that scored 80.5%. The row shows both. At 48 the same 80.5% costs 36:18, so the required time is 52 seconds slower than the race that set it. That's age grading in one row.
The clock eased. The standard didn't.
The two tabs above the table choose which age grade you're chasing. Distance AG% compares each distance against its own best. Overall AG% compares every distance against your single highest grade on that surface. Mine is 82.5%, from a 10 mile, so on that tab the 5K needs 17:25 and the marathon needs 2:40:08. Nothing is within reach and only the 5K is near. Which is fair. An overall age-grade PR should be hard.
The required time is rounded down, on purpose. Run that time or faster and you've topped the grade. Rounded to the nearest second, half the time you'd miss by a fraction.
How do you read the verdict?
Three words, decided by the gap between the projection and the required time. Within reach means the projection is faster by at least 1% of the required time. Near means the two sit within 1% of each other, either side. Beyond means the required time is faster by more than 1%. The 1% is floored at ten seconds, so a 1500m on the track isn't judged on a three-second gap.
Here are my eight road rows, seeded from the June 10K, on the Distance AG% tab.
| Distance | PR | Required | Projected today | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5K | 17:51 | 18:58 | 17:31 | Within reach, +1:27 |
| 10K | 35:17 | 36:18 | 36:31 | Near, −0:13 |
| 15K | 53:26 | 54:20 | 56:36 | Beyond, −2:16 |
| 10 Mile | 57:08 | 58:06 | 1:01:04 | Beyond, −2:58 |
| Half Marathon | 1:18:02 | 1:19:51 | 1:21:50 | Beyond, −1:59 |
| 25K | 1:31:29 | 1:33:04 | 1:38:19 | Beyond, −5:15 |
| 30K | 2:02:14 | 2:10:51 | 1:59:43 | Within reach, +11:08 |
| Marathon | 2:41:56 | 2:44:50 | 2:53:06 | Beyond, −8:16 |
The 30K is the one to be suspicious of. It's within reach because my only 30K is a 2:02:14 at 69.9%, run as a training race. Beating a soft PR is not an achievement. The 5K is half that story too. A 75.8% best next to 80% and more everywhere else says I rarely race it, not that I'm in 5K shape.
The page can't tell a soft PR from a hard one. It only knows the number in the row. So when a row lights up, ask why before you feel good about it.
How do I use Targets to Beat before a race?
Pick the row for the distance you've entered and read the required time. That's the pace target, at your age, on the current tables. For my 5K that's 18:58, and I have a projected 17:31 to spend against it. For my half it's 1:19:51, and I'm projected 1:21:50. One is a target. The other is a wish.
Then check the age chip. It defaults to your age today, but you can set it to the age you'll be on race day. Both sides move. The required times ease along the tables, and the projections assume you carry the seed race's age grade forward.
After the race, come back. The new result becomes the seed, the projections move, and some verdicts flip, in both directions. Either way, the page won't argue with you. It just recalculates.
If you've logged a race, open Targets to Beat and see which rows light up. If you haven't, the calculator will at least tell you the age grade you'd be chasing.
Sources
- Peter Riegel, "Athletic Records and Human Endurance," American Scientist Vol. 69, 1981 — retrieved 2026-09-07, https://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1981AmSci..69..285R
- Alan Jones, Age-Grade Tables (road, 2025 edition) — retrieved 2026-09-07, https://github.com/AlanLyttonJones/Age-Grade-Tables
- World Masters Athletics, Age-Grading Tables (2023 edition, track) — retrieved 2026-09-08, https://world-masters-athletics.com/wma-age-grading-tables/
- RaceRecords, Methodology: Equivalent times & predictions — retrieved 2026-09-07, https://racerecords.run/methodology#equivalent-times