Research Study Focus
Goals and Impact
Research Goal
We are tracking high school cross-country runners over the course of a season to better understand how different aspects of training relate to injury risk.
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We’re exploring questions like:
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How do external training factors (like total distance or time) and internal factors (like perceived effort or fatigue) influence the risk of injury?
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Does increasing training too quickly — whether in mileage or intensity — lead to a higher chance of getting injured?
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Does the way we define changes in weekly training (by distance, time, or perceived effort) affect how we understand injury risk?
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Our goal is to identify patterns that can help coaches and athletes make training decisions that support performance while reducing the risk of injury.
What We Know
Running-related injuries (RRIs) are very common in high school distance runners.
In fact, up to 68% of runners report having had one.
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With nearly 450,000 U.S. high school athletes running cross-country during the 2024–2025 school year, that means around 200,000 may have been injured at some point in the season.
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Injuries are affected by many things, including:
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Training loads — how far and how long someone runs (external)
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How hard a workout feels — effort, fatigue, and recovery (internal)
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Personal factors — past injuries
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Even though both distance and effort matter, most training plans still focus only on miles and time, because it’s simple and familiar — but maybe not the full picture.
Why It Matters
We want to help youth runners to break the cycle of injury one run at a time.