A 5-year Descriptive Epidemiology and Performance Study of Adolescent Recreational Marathon Runners

Abstract

PURPOSE: To descriptively examine injuries, treatments, and performance of adolescent recreational runners who trained for a half or full marathon from 2011-12 to 2015-16. METHODS: Musculoskeletal injuries and medical treatments of high school recreational runners who committed to a 30-week half or full marathon training program (mean=3.5 practices/week) were recorded by physical therapists over a 5-year period. The recorded information included number of injured participants, number of injuries, injury sites, diagnosis, and number of treatment sessions. Number of participants who completed a half or a full marathon at the end of the 30-weeks of training was recorded annually for the last 5 years. Obtained information was descriptively analyzed. RESULTS: Throughout the 5 training seasons, a total of 448 adolescent runners (age: 16.2±0.9 years; 55% female N=247, 45% male N=201) participated in the 30-week training period. During the training periods, 165 adolescent runners (36.8%) reported 225 musculoskeletal injuries (50.2%). The most common injury site was lower leg (29.9%) followed by knee and ankle/foot as the second and third most commonly injured sites (25% each). Achilles/posterior/peroneal tendonitis was the most common injury diagnosis reported (16.1%) followed by patellofemoral pain (14.7%) and shin splints (14.3%). Overall 87.1% of the injuries required 3 or fewer treatment sessions with a mean of 1.82 treatment sessions per injury. Of the 448 adolescent runners, a total of 441 adolescent runners completed either a half (N=62) or full marathon (N=379). The completion rate was 98.4% in this cohort following the 30-weeks of training. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the number of injured runners and reported injuries, most adolescent participants completed a half or full marathon following 30-weeks of training. Also, the injuries do not appear to be severe as evidenced by the low number of treatment sessions required and high percentage of students able to complete the race. Further research detailing volume of training with more precise measures of training time lost to injury is needed to more thoroughly validate these results.