Mental recovery and running-related injuries in recreational runners: the moderating role of passion for running

Key points

1. 01Harmonious passion strengthened the protective link between mental recovery after running and fewer injuries (OR 0.72, 28% lower injury odds)
2. 02Obsessive passion was independently associated with 36% higher odds of reporting a running-related injury (OR 1.36)
3. 03Mental detachment from running alone did not significantly predict injury in either passion group
4. 04Over half of participants (51.2%) reported at least one running-related injury in the past 12 months
5. 05The models explained only 8-10% of injury variance, indicating many other factors are involved

How it was conducted

Design

Cross-sectional online survey

Participants

246 Dutch recreational runners (53.7% male, mean age 47.2 years, mean 14.4 years running experience)

Injury definition

Self-reported running-related injury in the past 12 months causing restriction or stoppage for at least 7 days or 3 consecutive sessions

Key predictors

Mental detachment from running (3-item scale), mental recovery after running (3-item scale), harmonious passion (5 items), obsessive passion (6 items)

Statistical analysis

Multivariate logistic regression with interaction terms; controlled for gender, age, training schedule, weekly distance, and weekly time

What they found

• 51.2% of participants self-reported at least one running-related injury in the past 12 months
• Harmonious passion moderated the mental recovery-injury relation: runners with higher mental recovery and harmonious passion were 0.72 times as likely to report injuries (OR 0.72; 95% CI 0.54-0.96; p = 0.031)
• Obsessive passion was independently associated with 1.36 times higher odds of reporting injuries (OR 1.36; 95% CI 1.03-1.85; p = 0.047)
• No significant interaction was found between mental detachment from running and harmonious passion in predicting injuries
• No significant interaction was found between mental recovery or detachment and obsessive passion
• The harmonious passion model explained 10.4% of variance in injuries with 62.2% classification accuracy
• The obsessive passion model explained 7.9% of variance with 59.2% classification accuracy
• Zero-order correlation between harmonious passion and injuries: r = -0.15 (p = 0.022); obsessive passion and injuries: r = 0.14 (p = 0.026)

Limitations

• Cross-sectional design prevents causal conclusions about whether passion or recovery patterns cause injuries
• Injuries were self-reported without formal clinical diagnosis, which may introduce classification error
• Physical predispositions to injury were not screened for, which could confound the passion-injury associations
• Small pilot sample of recreational runners limits generalizability to elite athletes and other populations

Why it matters

For patients

Runners who feel compelled to run despite fatigue or discomfort (obsessive passion) face meaningfully higher injury risk and should seek education on balancing running with recovery.

For clinicians

Assessing a patient's type of running passion may help identify those at higher injury risk; coaching obsessively passionate runners toward harmonious engagement and structured mental recovery could be a low-cost preventive strategy.

For readers

This pilot study provides early evidence that psychological factors, specifically how running is internalized and how well a runner mentally unwinds afterward, contribute to injury risk beyond training load alone.