Running Performance during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Background:The COVID-19 pandemic saw governmentimposed health mandates that contributed to profound work, exercise, and lifestyle changes. There was an observed increase in weight gain and sedentary behavior during the pandemic in United States, as well as increased outdoor exercise and running in the United States. While road race times have consistently slowed over the last few decades, it is unknown how running performance changed during the pandemic.Methods: This was a retrospective analysis of finishers of the world's largest 10 km road race in 2019 (pre-pandemic) and 2021 (pandemic). Times were gathered using implicit JavaScript Object Notation API and novel web-scraping and post-processing. Participants' resident state and pace were correlated with open sourced publicly available durations of shelter-in-place, mask mandates, and gym closures in addition to COVID-19 hospitalization incidence and per capita mortality from March 2020 through March 2021. Runners' pace and participation differences were correlated with per state mitigation stipulations and percapita COVID-19 hospitalizations and mortality from March 2020 to March 2021, controlling for age and sex. All data was open access.Results: There were 60,525 pre-pandemic and 24,265 pandemic runners. The pace average was 1.4 min / mile faster (95% confidence interval [C] 1.34 to 1.45, p < 0.001) during the pandemic (12 versus 13.4 min / mile). Finishing times decreased during the pandemic in both women (12.9 vs. 14.3 min / mile, 95% CI 1.31 to 1.47, p < 0.001) and men (11.3 vs. 12.5 min / mile, 95% CI 1.2 to 1.3, p < 0.001). These performance trends were consistent in the 10,475 repeat runners (p < 0.001). These performance trends were consistent in the 10,475 repeat runners (p < 0.001) in both women (-0.4 min / mile, 95% CI -0.4 to -0.3, p < 0.01) and men (-0.3 min / mile, 95% CI -0.4 to -0.3, p < 0.01), with greatest improvement in those younger than 20 years old (-1 min / mile, 95% CI -1.2 to -0.7, p < 0.01). Mitigation had negligible impact on performance when weighted by resident state and duration of mask mandates (r = 0.17, 95% CI -0.1 to 0.5), shelter-in-place (r = 0.24, 95% CI -0.1 to 0.5), and gym closures (r = 0.14, 95% CI -0.2 to 0.4). There was no correlation between performance and COVID-19 hospitalization incidence (r = < 0.01, 95% CI -0.4 to 0.4) or per capita mortality (r < 0.01, 95% CI -0.3 to 0.3). Conclusion:Pandemic-era 10 km runners saw improved performance over pre-pandemic times, consistent across age groups and sex, with the biggest benefit in the youngest people. COVID-19 mitigation restrictions and disease severity did not affect performance, suggesting unmeasured lifestyle changes may have contributed to improved fitness.