A prospective study on time to recovery in 254 injured novice runners.

OBJECTIVES

Describe the diagnoses and the time to recovery of running-related injuries in novice runners.

DESIGN

Prospective cohort study on injured runners.

METHOD: This paper is a secondary data analysis of a 933-person cohort study (DANO-RUN) aimed at characterizing risk factors for injury in novice runners. Among those sustaining running-related injuries, the types of injuries and time to recovery is described in the present paper. All injured runners were diagnosed after a thorough clinical examination and then followed prospectively during their recovery. If they recovered completely from injury, time to recovery of each injury was registered.

RESULTS

A total of 254 runners were injured. The proportion of runners diagnosed with medial tibial stress syndrome was 15%, 10% for patellofemoral pain, 9% for medial meniscal injury, 7% for Achilles tendinopathy and 5% for plantar fasciitis. Among the 220 runners (87%) recovering from their injury, the median time to recovery was 71 days (minimum  = 9 days, maximum  = 617 days).

CONCLUSIONS

Medial tibial stress syndrome was the most common injury followed by patellofemoral pain, medial meniscal injury and Achilles tendinopathy. Half of the injured runners were unable to run 2×500 meters without pain after 10 weeks. Almost 5% of the injured runners received surgical treatment.