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, sidewalks, or trails by a generally healthy adult at a moderate training pace. Not applicable to race conditions.
Limitations
No published per-mile fatality rate exists for general recreational running. This estimate is derived from proxies (road user risk data and marathon cardiac data) and involves significant uncertainty. Risk varies by route type, traffic exposure, pace, and health conditions. Marathon racing (~0.27 µmt/mile) carries substantially higher cardiac risk than training-pace running.
Source notes
Estimate derived from two reference points. (1) Road traffic exposure: UK DfT Road User Risk 2024 reports pedestrian fatality rates of approximately 33 per billion miles (0.033 µmt/mile) and road cycling at approximately 15 per billion miles (0.015 µmt/mile). Recreational runners share road and path infrastructure; road exposure risk per mile is estimated between pedestrian and cycling rates at approximately 0.015–0.033 µmt/mile. (2) Cardiac risk: Kim JH et al. (NEJM 2012, PMID 22129254) documented marathon race-day cardiac arrest at approximately 0.27 µmt/mile; training-pace running carries substantially lower cardiac risk than race conditions. Combining road exposure and a small training-pace cardiac component, 0.02 µmt/mile is used as a central estimate. No published national dataset provides a directly measured per-mile fatality rate for recreational training-pace running.
Last reviewed
6/11/2026
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RiskLens is an educational tool. It uses population-level estimates to help explain relative risk. It is not a prediction of your personal risk and should not be used as medical, legal, financial, or safety advice.