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.