Understanding my own pace

Hello, being a regular parkrun fan I have been running regularly for about 9 months. I have run a few 10k races and do run 16k runs around my patch. I have just entered my first half marathon. It is 9 weeks away which should be plenty of time. I have no grand ideas of finishing I under x hours, I just want to finish. Some of the training schedules I see talk about easy pace runs, tempo runs and fast runs but do not explain what that is and as a relatively new runner it doesn't mean too much to me. On a parkrun I typically run at around 5m 20s per km to 5m 45s on a poorer day. When I go out and just run with no timer to think about I plod along at 6m 30s / km on average through the run. Can someone tell me what kind of paces I should aim for when training and it says easy or long run or tempo (or any other regular term that I might not have seen yet)? Thanks.

Howdy Emceey...(you could do with using some paragraphs )

As a beginner, the McMillan running site is a decent outline of what paces you should be doing.

http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/index.php/calcUsage/calculate

i don't deal with km, but from what you say at the moment your 5k is in the  8.35 to 9.15 mins per mile range

And your easy pace is in the 10.28 mins per mile domain

Using your fastest 5k race pace, I'd say your 10.28 is spot on for your easy pace. I'd put the range as being around 10.20-11

Using a rough guide, on what info you've given, i'd work out your paces as follows

5k pace 8.35
10k pace 8.50
tempo (pace you can hold for 10miles in a race) 9:00
half marathon pace  9:05
marathon pace 9:20
steady 10
easy 10:20+

Not to bamboozle you, most of your mileage should be at easy pace. It depends how much mileage you do, how much you can dip into the other zones....you need enough supporting mileage....

Stevie, thanks.

Lack of paragraphs is a function of typing on an iPad which restricts me somewhat from my usually verbose rambling.

I will have a look at that link, thanks. Then I will try to get my head around that little lot.

Bamboozled? Yes.

Apologies em....I've gone in ridiculously overblown as usual...but that's the full set of info for your current position....

i wouldn't worry too much about aiming for "quality" running yet (anything Marathon pace and up) , until you're doing a good 20+ miles a week...