Injury and heat stroke incidence rate among night marathon runners

BACKGROUND: Marathon runners are at risk of heat stroke and injury particularly the morning marathon. There is limited data on incidence rate of injury and heat stroke in night marathon.METHODS: This was a retrospective, descriptive study conducted by retrieving medical database of Buriram night marathon, Thailand. The study period was between 2022 and 2024. The inclusion criteria were runners who reported any type of injury and heat stroke during the night marathon. Incidence rate of injury and heat stroke with 95% confidence intervals (CI) in total, in each running category, and in each year were calculated.RESULTS: There were 53,645 night-marathon runners who participated in the events for a period of 3 years. Of those, there were 1265 runners (2.36%; 95% CI of 2.23%, 2.49%) had any type of injury. There were 8 cases who participated in full marathon had heat stroke 0.015% (95% CI 0.010%, 0.030%); categorized as 4 cases in 2022 and 4 cases in 2024. The majority of cases had an age group of 30-49 years (7 cases; 88%) with an equal sex distribution. One case was referred to provincial hospital with good treatment outcome. Details of runners with heat stroke were shown in Table I.CONCLUSIONS: The night marathon may have lower rate of heat stroke but comparable rate of injury with the morning marathon.