Running for one hour burns roughly 480 to 1,000 calories depending on your body weight and pace. A 155-pound person running at 6 mph (a 10-minute mile) burns about 720 calories in an hour, while a heavier or faster runner can push well past that. Your exact number depends on a handful of factors, with body weight and speed doing most of the heavy lifting.
Calories Burned by Weight and Speed
Body weight is the single biggest variable in how many calories you burn running. A heavier body requires more energy to move the same distance at the same speed. Harvard Health Publishing provides calorie estimates for 30 minutes of running, which double neatly for a full hour:
- 5 mph (12-minute mile): A 125-pound person burns about 480 calories per hour. At 155 pounds, that rises to 576. At 185 pounds, 672.
- 6 mph (10-minute mile): About 720 calories per hour for a 155-pound person, and 840 for someone at 185 pounds.
- 7.5 mph (8-minute mile): A 125-pound person burns roughly 750 per hour, a 155-pound person about 900, and a 185-pound person around 1,050.
- 10 mph (6-minute mile): Roughly 906, 1,124, and 1,342 calories per hour for those same three weights.
If you weigh more than 185 pounds, your calorie burn will be proportionally higher. A simple way to estimate: for every additional 10 pounds of body weight, add roughly 5 to 7 percent more calories to these numbers at the same pace.
How to Estimate Your Own Number
The standard formula used by exercise scientists relies on something called a MET value, which represents how hard an activity works your body compared to sitting still. Sitting scores a 1.0. Running ranges from 8.5 METs at a slow jog up to 18.5 METs at a full sprint. Here’s the formula:
Calories per hour = MET value × body weight in kilograms
To convert your weight, divide pounds by 2.2. So a 170-pound person (77 kg) running at 7 mph (MET of 11.0) would burn about 847 calories in an hour. At 9 mph (MET of 13.0), that same person burns roughly 1,001 calories. The 2024 Compendium of Physical Activities, the standard reference used in exercise research, lists these MET values for common running speeds:
- 5 mph (12 min/mile): 8.5 METs
- 6 mph (10 min/mile): 9.3 METs
- 7 mph (8.5 min/mile): 11.0 METs
- 8 mph (7.5 min/mile): 12.0 METs
- 9 mph (6.5 min/mile): 13.0 METs
- 10 mph (6 min/mile): 14.8 METs
Why Two Runners Burn Different Amounts
The calorie charts give you a solid ballpark, but your actual burn can shift 10 to 20 percent in either direction based on individual factors. Running economy, which is how efficiently your body converts energy into forward motion, varies significantly from person to person. Experienced runners tend to waste less energy. Their muscles activate more precisely, with less unnecessary co-contraction between opposing muscle groups. Recreational runners show greater stride-to-stride variability and more erratic muscle recruitment patterns, which means they’re spending extra calories on inefficient movement.
Body composition matters too, independent of total weight. Two people who both weigh 160 pounds will burn different amounts if one carries more muscle and the other more fat. Muscle tissue is metabolically active and drives the engine of movement, so a more muscular runner generally has a higher resting metabolic rate, though the difference during running itself is modest compared to the effect of pace and total body weight.
Age plays a role as well. Research on master runners found that peak oxygen consumption declines significantly with age, with a strong negative correlation between age and aerobic capacity in men. For women, the energy cost of running at a given speed actually increased with age. In practical terms, this means an older runner may burn slightly more calories covering the same distance at the same pace, because their body is working harder relative to its capacity.
Outdoor Running vs. Treadmill
Running outside burns about 3 to 7 percent more calories than running at the same speed on a treadmill. Two things account for the gap. First, outdoor runners push against air resistance, which adds a small but real energy cost that increases with speed. Second, a treadmill belt assists leg turnover slightly by pulling your foot backward, reducing the work your hamstrings and glutes need to do. Setting your treadmill to a 1 percent incline roughly compensates for both of these differences.
Terrain matters outdoors too. Cross-country running burns more than road running at the same perceived effort. A 155-pound person burns about 632 calories per hour on trails compared to roughly 576 at a similar easy road pace, because uneven surfaces force constant micro-adjustments that recruit additional stabilizing muscles.
The Afterburn Effect
Your calorie burn doesn’t stop the moment you finish running. After exercise, your body continues consuming extra oxygen to restore muscle glycogen, clear metabolic byproducts, and return to its resting state. This process adds an estimated 6 to 15 percent on top of the calories you burned during the run itself. For a run that burned 700 calories, that’s an extra 42 to 105 calories over the following hours. The afterburn is more pronounced after harder efforts, so a tempo run or interval session produces a larger post-exercise bump than an easy jog at the same duration.
What Your Watch Gets Right and Wrong
Most GPS watches and fitness trackers estimate calories using your heart rate, weight, age, and pace. They’re reasonable for relative comparisons (today’s run burned more than yesterday’s), but the absolute numbers can be off by 15 to 30 percent in either direction. Optical wrist-based heart rate sensors tend to be less accurate than chest straps, and individual differences in running economy are invisible to any wearable. If you’re using calorie data to guide nutrition or weight management, treat the number as an approximation rather than a precise measurement. The MET-based formula above, while simpler, is based on the same standardized research your watch draws from and gives you a comparable estimate without needing any device at all.