Should Adolescents Run Marathons?

NewsBot · Sep 22, 2020

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Should Adolescents Run Marathons?
Youth Marathon Training Injury Epidemiology and Risk Factors
Goldman, Joshua T et al'
Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine: September 15, 2020 - Volume Publish Ahead of Print - Issue -

Objective:
Youth participation in distance running has increased, yet little data exist about the injury patterns and safety of such activity. This study seeks to determine the types and rates of injuries seen in an adolescent marathon training program.

Design:
Observational prospective cohort study.

Setting:
Community-based adolescent marathon training program.

Participants:
The study enrolled 1927 students from 50 high schools (HS) and 34 middle schools (MS) participating in the 2017 to 2018 Students Run Los Angeles marathon training program.

Assessment of Risk Factors:
Weekly injury reports completed by running coaches. Data elements included participant demographics, weekly training distance, injury type, injury acuity, and missed training time.

Main Outcome Measures:
Epidemiology of self-reported injury in adolescent runners.

Results:
A total of 583 injuries occurred in 18% of runners during the training program. High schools runners were more likely to be injured than MS runners (20.8% vs 14.2%, P < 0.001). Seventy-two percent of injuries were acute with a mean missed training time of 4.8 days (SD 4.8). The most frequent site of injury was the knee (33%). Overall, runners with injuries ran a significantly greater distance per week than uninjured runners (14.6 mi vs 12.0 mi, P < 0.001). Ninety-nine percent of marathon participants completed the race.

Conclusions:
During a 28-week marathon training program, 18% of adolescent participants reported an injury. More injuries occurred in HS students, were acute, and involved the knee. This study represents one of the largest descriptions of injury prevalence in adolescent distance running and highlights a lower injury rate than adults during marathon training.
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NewsBot · Sep 22, 2020

From Runners World:
Is It Safe For My Teenager To Run Marathons?

NewsBot · Sep 22, 2020

From 2007:

Can children and adolescents run marathons?
William O Roberts
Sports Med. 2007;37(4-5):299-301. doi: 10.2165/00007256-200737040-00007.

There are few data on youth marathon runners and the most commonly asked questions of "can children run marathons?" and "what are the health consequences?" remain unanswered. Expert opinion is split with regard to running this distance at a young age. There have been many thousands of finishers <18 years old at the Los Angeles Marathon in an organised programme for youth running and nearly 300 finishers in at the Twin Cities Marathon. The youngest child in these data sets was 7 years old. There has not been any significant medical injury at these events. Children who choose of their own accord to participate in marathon training should be allowed to do so as long as their social, academic, psychological and physiological development is not disrupted. Follow-up studies of these young runners would help evaluate the long-term health consequences of long distance running and shape future recommendations.
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NewsBot · Sep 22, 2020

From 2012:

Can Children and Adolescents Run Marathons?
William O. Roberts
Sports Medicine volume 37, pages299–301(2007)

There are few data on youth marathon runners and the most commonly asked questions of “can children run marathons?” and “what are the health consequences?” remain unanswered. Expert opinion is split with regard to running this distance at a young age. There have been many thousands of finishers <18 years old at the Los Angeles Marathon in an organised programme for youth running and nearly 300 finishers in at the Twin Cities Marathon. The youngest child in these data sets was 7 years old. There has not been any significant medical injury at these events. Children who choose of their own accord to participate in marathon training should be allowed to do so as long as their social, academic, psychological and physiological development is not disrupted. Follow-up studies of these young runners would help evaluate the long-term health consequences of long distance running and shape future recommendations.
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NewsBot · Mar 8, 2021

Predictors of Running Related Injury in Adolescent Marathoners
Emily Miller, MD
AMSSM Mtg

Purpose: While distance running has experienced an increase in youth participation over recent years prospective data on the safety of marathon training remains limited. In our fourth year of collaboration with Students Run Los Angeles (SRLA) we explored risk factors for running-related injuries in adolescents.

Methods: Over 24 weeks of the 2019 to 2020 marathon training season, demographic data, weekly training mileage and injury data were collected for middle school (MS) and high school (HS) students. Injury rate per 1000 miles ran was calculated. A multivariate count model was evaluated; injury rates were compared and the effect of up to 8 potential predictors was assessed using mixed regression model for counts.

Results: One thousand four hundred twenty-two runners participated, mean age 15.6 (SD 1.94), 51.7% female, 48.3% male. Of these, 38.6% were in MS, 61.4% in HS. 791 (55.6%) had not previously completed a marathon, 243 (17.1%) had completed one and 161 (11.3%) had completed 2 to 6.1128 (79.3%) reported no prior injury, 49 (4.1%) reported history of prior injury and 235 (16.5%) were unknown. 323 unique injuries occurred in a total of 231 (16.2%) runners. The overall injury rate per 1000 miles ran for all participants was 0.97 (SE 0.05). In multivariate analysis controlling for age, female gender was found to be a significant risk factor (rate of 1.12 vs 0.84, RR 1.34, P = 0.04). No overall difference in injury rates between MS and HS runners was found (1.00 vs 0.94, RR 0.94, P = 0.86). Those who had participated in 2 or more marathons had a significantly lower injury rate than first time participants (0.97 vs 1.75, RR 0.55, P = 0.025). Spearman correlation of observed versus predicted injuries in the multivariate model was rs = 0.26.

Conclusions: Female gender is a significant risk factor for running related injury in adolescent distance runners while repeat participation in the marathon distance is not. Our data are limited by missing demographics and inconsistent weekly injury data collection by non-medical volunteer coaches. Based on the low Spearman correlation, it is suggested that additional risk factors are unaccounted for in our current model.
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