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Background Trail running occurs mainly in remote natural terrains. Runners often train and participate with an illness. A better understanding of illness in trail runners preparing for trail races is critical to prevent adverse events. Objectives To determine the epidemiology and associated illness risk factors among trail runners. Design Prospective cohort study. Setting South Africa, 20 November 2018 – 19 August 2019. Participants South African trail runners training towards a trail race of ≥21 km, recruited through trail running social media platforms. Assessment A modified Oslo Sports Trauma Research Center Questionnaire for Health Problems was used biweekly to prospectively collect running-related illness and training history data among 152 participants (males n=120, females n=32) over 30 weeks. Main outcome measurements Prevalence (n,%), incidence (per 1000 running-days; 95%CI), clinical characteristics (primary organ system), severity (time-loss), illness burden (IB) and associated risk factors. Results Seventy-nine (52%) participants sustained 157 illnesses. The overall illness rate was 7.2 illnesses/1000 running-days (95%CI 5.7–9.2). The mean prevalence of illnesses assessed every two weeks was 10.0%. Females had a higher mean prevalence (13.0%) than males (9.0%), with an illness incidence ratio of 1.47 (pConclusion One in every 2 trail runners suffered illness during training. Females presented with a higher prevalence and incidence. The respiratory system accounted for >40% of all illnesses. During training, 95.5% of illnesses prevented runners from training for an estimated period of ≥1 day. These results are important to guide illness prevention during training for a trail race.
Rensburg et al. (Fri,) studied this question.