When Taylor Swift told TIME, who named her Person of the Year, that she trained for her Eras Tour by singing the entire setlist while running on a treadmill every day for six months before the tour started, we runners had to know: So how far did Swift go?
Swift, who’s known for running “as fast as [she] can,” said she ran “fast for fast songs, and a jog or a fast walk for slow songs.” Unfortunately she didn’t lay out specific paces, and we did try to find her on Strava. (There are a bunch of Taylor Swifts who log their workouts on the app, by the way.)
So, we crunched some numbers just for fun and here’s what we came up with.
Swift’s Eras Tour, er, runs for 3 hours and 15 minutes—a fast but not unattainable marathon time for many runners—or 195 minutes. Let’s say Swift held a pace of 9 minutes per mile for the entire set list, that’s 21.6 miles. (A 9:09 pace for 26.2 miles would put Swift just under the four-hour mark.)
But we know the “Anti-Hero” singer didn’t run at a consistent pace (Taylor Swift, she’s just like us). So let’s look at how many miles the Pennsylvania native and 12-time Grammy winner might have run across different paces during her treadmill training.
In order to make the most of your music-backed workout, experts recommend making a playlist with songs of varying beats per minute (BPM), from 120 to 140 for steady-state running and 150 to 160 for faster speedwork. A 2019 study from the Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada found that music with a BPM of 130 or higher can improve endurance, help maintain a steady pace, and provide a quicker recovery.
“Cruel Summer,” for example, is 170 BPM, while “Karma” is 90 BPM.
We want to reiterate to fellow Swifties that we’re making some educated guesses here, and we dont actually know how fast Swift logged her miles.
All that said, we looked at the BPMs for every song on her set list (not including surprise songs) and placed them into a welcome-to-New-York walking pace—15-minute-per-mile pace for 120 BPM and less—and a 9-minute pace for songs greater than 120 BPM. The split between walking and running paces was almost identical (22 and 23). It’s like she’s a mastermind.
If you’re wondering, “Lover” has the lowest BPM at 69, and “Long Live” has the highest at 204. And, of course, we used “Taylor’s Version” wherever we could. So... ready for it?
We averaged the length of the songs at four minutes (yes, “All Too Well,” is the anomaly, but balances out with “You Need to Calm Down” at just 2:51. So, 22 (!) songs with an average of four minutes at a pace of 9 minutes per mile comes out to roughly 9.78 miles. When Swift slowed it down to a 15-minute-per-mile walking pace across 23 songs, averaging four minutes long, she covered nearly a 10K (6.13 miles).
So, all told, Swift, in our fun estimation game, covered just about 16 miles during her workouts.
Now, we’re wondering: What running shoes did she wear when she wasn’t practicing in heels? And what model treadmill does she use?
Darling, let’s run.
Heather is the former food and nutrition editor for Runner's World, the author of The Runner's World Vegetarian Cookbook, and a seven-time marathoner with a best of 3:31—but she is most proud of her 1:32 half, 19:40 5K, and 5:33 mile.
