PURPOSE: It is unclear if “excessive” exercise is harmful, particularly at a young age. While childhood participation in ultramarathons has increased exponentially over the past 20 years, less than 25% of these individuals continue running ultramarathons in adulthood. This raises concern that childhood ultramarathon runners may suffer complications from their young participation in the sport. The purpose of this work was to examine if the extent of ultramarathon participation among those under 19 years of age is related to the cessation of running into adulthood due to running related injuries.
METHODS: Individuals having completed an ultramarathon when under 19 years of age were recruited via announcements on running-related websites and Facebook advertisements. Qualified participants were also identified from race results databases, and directly recruited when online publicly available contact information was found. Participants completed an online survey including questions on running history, whether or not they are currently running and reasons for not if that was the case, and their opinions about how childhood ultramarathon running had impacted their health. Group comparisons were made with an unpaired t-test or the Mann-Whitney test.
RESULTS: There were 69 participants (9 women and 60 men) completing the survey with median age of 34 years (range 18-67 years). Those who had stopped running regularly due to running-related injury (12%) had not completed more ultramarathons when under 19 years of age compared with those who had either stopped for other reasons (28%) or continued to run regularly (median 1 vs. 2, p=.13). The age of these two groups was also similar (p=.51). All but one respondent (1%) indicated that they believed running an ultramarathon as a child had either a positive (67%) or no (32%) effect on their physical health. CONCLUSIONS: Cessation of running into adulthood due to running related injuries was unrelated to the number of ultramarathons completed while under 19 years of age. Childhood ultramarathon runners also largely felt that ultramarathon running as a child had a favorable effect on their health. These findings suggest that the extent of childhood ultramarathon running does not adversely affect running into adulthood. Supported by the Ultra Sports Science Foundation