Beep test levels, without the folklore

A beep-test score is not a single number like a 5k time. People write it as 9.4 or 13.2 — level, then how many shuttles you finished on that level.

So 10.4 means you got through level 10 and completed four shuttles at that speed. It does not mean 10.4 km, and it does not mean you were 40 percent of the way to level 11 in any tidy mathematical sense. You either made the shuttle or you did not.

If your school writes “47 laps” on a slip instead, you are probably on a PACER-style score. PACER vs the beep test is a different write-up of a similar run.

How the speeds go

The common 20m tape — the one most clubs mean when they say beep test or bleep test — starts at 8.5 km/h. Every level adds 0.5 km/h. A level lasts about a minute, so as you get faster, more 20m trips fit into that minute.

Published charts sometimes disagree by one shuttle. The audio you use, and how the editor rounded the minute, is the thing that matters on the day. Treat the table as the usual Léger-style pattern, not as a law.

Level	Speed	Shuttles (approx.)
1	8.5 km/h	7
2	9.0 km/h	8
3	9.5 km/h	8
4	10.0 km/h	9
5	10.5 km/h	9
6	11.0 km/h	10
7	11.5 km/h	10
8	12.0 km/h	11
9	12.5 km/h	11
10	13.0 km/h	12
11	13.5 km/h	12
12	14.0 km/h	13
13	14.5 km/h	13
14	15.0 km/h	14
15	15.5 km/h	14
16	16.0 km/h	15
17	16.5 km/h	15
18	17.0 km/h	16
19	17.5 km/h	16
20	18.0 km/h	17
21	18.5 km/h	17

Some tapes keep going after 21. Most people do not need that information on a first test.

The nasty part is not the extra 0.5 km/h. It is the turn. You arrive, stop, turn, and the next beep is already closer than it was a minute ago. Late levels feel like you are borrowing time from the line.

What is a “good” score?

There is no honest single answer, which is why the internet is full of fake ones.

A 14-year-old in PE, a 28-year-old midfielder, and someone coming back from a winter off are not in the same conversation. Age, sex, sport, heat, floor, and whether you have run this protocol before all move the number. Schools and federations publish their own bands. Use those if the test is for them.

What you can compare is yourself, on the same 20m, with the same audio, a few weeks apart. That is the useful version of “good.”

If someone quotes a chart that says “excellent = 14.0 for everyone,” they are selling a poster.

Estimated VO2max

A lot of beep-test apps, BeepRun included, turn the score into an Estimated VO2max. It comes from a published fitness-test formula, not from a mask on a treadmill.

Different formulas spit out different numbers for the same level. Age and sex tables change the reading again. None of this is a diagnosis, and none of it is a lab result. If your screen says 47 and a website says 51 for “level 11,” both can be doing the maths they were told to do.

Use the estimate as a tag on the session, the same way you would tag weather. The thing to watch is whether your level.shuttle is moving.

BeepRun also shows age and sex averages as reference values. Reference means reference. It is not a pass mark.

You do not have to empty the tank every time

A full test is a max effort. Doing that three times a week is a good way to hate the audio.

For training, a lot of people run to a target level and stop, or run a block of shuttles at one speed. The protocol is still the protocol. You are just not turning every Tuesday into a selection trial.

If you want the mechanics of the run itself — the lines, the miss rule, why it is called bleep in one country and beep in another — start with how the 20m beep test works. The short version is there.

And if you feel unwell, skip the session. An estimate on a phone is not worth a bad day.