I've been doing a lot of walking lately. It's pretty hard to exceed 4mph, even when you are working yourself hard. To get up to speeds of 4.5-5 mph requires a special movement technique. Walking athletes call it "power walking", and the British military refers to it as "tabbing". Basically, you need to throw your hips forward each time you take a step - thereby lengthening your stride by a few inches. You can train yourself to do it. It still counts as walking because your heels hit the ground before the ball of the foot ... but the average spectator might think you were almost jogging.

I would agree that a steady pace of 3 mph is more practical for the vast majority of people, esp. over varied terrain (but with solid footing).

Pete 2

You are quite right. I can get up about a 4.5 mph walking pace as I did yesterday. However as also mentioned yesterday, I could not keep this pace for hours. 3 mph is much more realistic pace for most everyone on fairly easy terrain.

I did some crude measuring. When I'm walking into work on Monday morning, my average speed is 1.25 MPH. When I'm walking out of work on Friday afternoon, my speed is 9.75 MPH.

I would like to see the afterburners on those shoes that you wear home on Fridays!

"When I'm walking out of work on Friday afternoon, my speed is 9.75 MPH."

Hahahaha !!!
Good one :-)
I could probably boost my speed if I were heading towards happy hour at the local pub too.

Pete2

I am old and fat so walk pretty slow. On level easy trails a little over 2 mph. On trails that includes some picture taking time and time for the beagle to get in some creek time and some good sniffs.

The other day we were on more rugged up and down terrain. We did 5.1 miles in 3 hours and ten minutes. About 1.6 MPH.

We did another trail last week )or maybe it was the week before) that was 11.7 miles back and forth in just under 6 hours. Level and easy trail though.

By the way, why would a beagle be chicken of chickens? She is not chicken of other birds. She has been up close to wild geese, turkeys, crows, and ducks, and never seemed to care. When we were out a week or so ago, we ran across about 20 chickens on the trail. She wanted absolutely nothing to do with them. She tried to go back where we came from on the trail. I had to have a very serious chat with her to get her moving past the chickens.

Olympic walkers are averaging more than 10 mph (less than 6 min/mi). Most fit people cannot RUN a mile that fast. So, 6 mph may be fast for a normal person, but it's well below the bragging rights pace for the sport of walking.

For me, 6 mph (10 min/mi) is a light jogging pace. A max walk speed for me is somewhere around 4.5 mi/hr. I could walk at 5 mph for a short burst. I don't think it's possible for me to walk at 10 mph even for a short burst, and I'm not interested in risking an injury to try!

Not sure about the beagle, but I knew a tuna who was chicken of the sea!

My rule of thumb for planning purposes in most conditions is 3 km per hour, or about 1.9 mph. That gives plenty of leeway for the unexpected (heavy terrain, heavy pack, unfit person in the group or the group just feels like strolling about, chatting and having a good time).

A fit person can comfortably walk as fast as 5-6 km per hour (3.1-3.7 mph) on very easy terrain (firm paths, relatively flat). I don't think it is realistic to plan for anything faster than that. Your mileage will vary, but 6 km (3.7 mph) is where I stop enjoy walking. (Depending on company and situations I sometimes just have to stop whining and endure a faster pace than I like). I have friends with longer legs that comfortably can walk faster, but they are a minority.

So - most of the time I use 2 mph, but I'll use 3.7 as an upper limit if conditions justify it (paved path, easy terrain, known participiants).

Running is a totally different story.

the army, who may or may not know a thing or two about walking, says the average is 4 km / hr. which according to the tubes is 2.48 mph.

army

see graph at "dismounted movement".

that's flat terrain.

now if you are going uphill or downhilll - my favorite - see same chart for added or subtracted times.

for me, they can be very close to reality when planning for a hike.

pack weight can influence speed / times as well - as does everything else mentioned in previous posts.

good topic.