Sports and recreation
Running
Estimated acute risk associated with recreational or fitness running.
Base risk estimate
0.02 micromorts per miles
Population-level estimate. Not a personal prediction.
Assumptions
Assumes recreational or fitness running on roads, trails, or sidewalks by a generally healthy adult at a moderate training pace.
Limitations
Risk varies by route type (road vs trail), traffic exposure, health conditions, and running intensity. Marathon racing (~0.27 µmt/mile) carries substantially higher cardiac risk than recreational training. This estimate should be replaced with a sourced epidemiological study covering general running populations.
Source notes
Placeholder value for development only. Estimate anchored between two known reference points: (1) road cycling at 0.015 µmt/mile (UK DfT 2022, traffic fatalities) — runners have comparable road exposure per mile; (2) marathon racing at ~0.27 µmt/mile (Kim JH et al., N Engl J Med 2012;366:130-40) — recreational training pace carries far lower cardiac risk than race conditions. A value of 0.02 µmt/mile reflects road-exposure risk similar to cycling, with a small cardiac component for training-pace running. Per-mile fatality data for general recreational running is not directly published in national surveillance systems.
Last reviewed
6/10/2026