title: Youth marathon runners and race day medical risk over 26 years.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To report the number of marathon finishers younger than 18 years and race day medical encounters at the same site and to compare them with adult finishers.
  
  
  METHODS
  Retrospective cohort study.
  
  
  METHODS
  Urban 42-km road race.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twin Cities Marathon finishers.
  
  
  METHODS
  The race records from 1982 to 2007 were assessed for finishers younger than 18 years to determine the number of finishers and medical encounters, incidence of race-related medical encounters, and type and severity of medical problems.
  
  
  METHODS
  Age group marathon finishers and medical encounters.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Three hundred ten marathon (225 boys and 85 girls) aged 7 to 17 years finished the race with times ranging from 2:53:22 to 6:10:00. There were 4 medical encounters (minor in nature and required no intervention beyond a short period of rest) for an incidence of 12.9 per 1000 finishers. The odds ratio for youth compared with adult finish line medical encounters was 0.52 (P = 0.2658; 95% confidence interval, 0.19-1.39).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Three hundred ten youth marathon successfully finished Twin Cities Marathon over 26 years with only 4 requiring post-race medical evaluations. The relative risk of requiring acute race day medical attention was less than, but not statistically different from, adult finishers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. rober037@umn.edu
authors.forename: William O
authors.initials: WO
authors.lastname: Roberts
authors.forename: William G
authors.initials: WG
authors.lastname: Nicholson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005221:Fatigue / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006296:Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008910:Minnesota; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012420:Running; D012720:Severity of Illness Index