MESSA Hurdle Timer and Race Pace Calculator
Time a race from the gun with one thumb, or work out the touchdown splits you should be hitting over the 400m, 300m and 200m hurdles.
Calculator (400H)
Race model
Coaches look for a differential under 5%. Hurdle 4 shows how hard the first part of the race was run. The run in is the only 40m of the race with no hurdle in it, so it is where a tiring athlete loses the most.
Calculator limits (47.0s to 68.0s) are based on data gathered during World Athletics meets.
Target splits and touchdown times
| Mark | Distance | Time | Diff |
|---|
Enter a valid time to generate splits.
Now go and time the real thing
These are your targets. A free account turns this page into a stopwatch built for hurdles: start on the gun, tap once at every hurdle, stop at the line. Ten touchdown times captured while the race is still being run, then laid over your training reps on one chart.
Targets are the easy part
A chart tells you what to run. Knowing what you actually ran, hurdle by hurdle, is a different thing, and it is where races are won and lost.
On your own
No account needed to use the calculator
- Time a race from the gun with one thumb
- Ten touchdown times captured live, no video
- Target touchdown times for every hurdle
- Your split differential and race model
- Training reps and races on one chart
- Nobody watching your stride pattern
- No plan for the next training block
- You work out what the numbers mean
Takes a minute. Your data stays yours.
Coached at the track
Sydney squads, weekly sessions
- Everything on the left, plus
- A coach on the stopwatch beside you
- Stride pattern fixed before it costs you races
- Sessions built around your season, not a template
- Competition entries and race planning
- A squad to train with
One free session. No obligation.
Not ready to train with us? Fair enough. Set yourself up below and keep your own record for free.
Time the race from the gun, with your thumb
A free account turns this page into a stopwatch built for hurdles, a place to keep every rep, and a chart that puts your training next to your racing.
Put in for the track
The timer is free. The track is not. Willoughby and SOPAC both cost money every session, and so do hurdles, entries and the athletes whose families cannot cover them.
Ten touchdown times, one thumb, no video
Most people find out how a race was run by watching it back that night. Press start on the gun, tap once as they land off each hurdle, stop at the line, and you know before the spikes are off. The times drop straight into your log, ready to check and save.
Tap, do not transcribe
Start on the gun, one tap at every hurdle, stop at the line. Ten touchdown times captured while the race is still being run, with no video to sit through afterwards.
Put the rep over the race
Lay a training rep across a race, hurdle by hurdle, on the same chart. Where the two lines separate is the part of the race the next block has to fix.
The numbers a coach reads
Halves split on distance, the differential as a share of the whole race, hurdle 4, and the run in from the last hurdle to the line. Under 5% is an evenly run 400.
The calculator above needs no account at all. The account is free to use and it is there so your times are still around next week. Read what other athletes say
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Record your runs and track them over the season.
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Why height and spacing matter. The moment you leave the ground your centre of mass is on a fixed parabola. Nothing you do in the air changes it, so the whole clearance is decided at take-off.
Height sets how far that parabola has to rise, and rise costs time in the air. A 400H clearance averages about 0.38s of flight and moves the centre of mass roughly 3.3m horizontally. Over ten hurdles that is a large slice of the race spent not accelerating.
It also sets where you take off. Efficient clearance sits near a 60:40 take-off to landing split. Athletes on lower hurdles take off proportionally further back and get a flatter, cheaper parabola, which is part of why the same touchdown times mean very different things at 76.2cm and 91.4cm.
So we ask because a rep at reduced height or shortened spacing is not comparable to a race, and a chart that overlays them without knowing would quietly mislead you.
Enter the time from the gun at each hurdle, not the gap between them. Leave blank any you did not time.
| Hurdle | Time from gun (s) | Gap | Strides |
|---|
Tick a run to put it on the chart. Solid is competition, dashed is training.