Background: As awareness of exercises is widely promoted in public, running has become a popular physical activity. Hence, there are increased numbers of marathon event yearly in Malaysia. Consequently, running related injuries have become common. Objectives: To identify the prevalence and common location of running related musculoskeletal pain among the half marathon runners (21km) and full marathon runners (42km) in Malaysiaand to identify which type of runners (half marathon runners or full marathon runners) had higher prevalence of musculoskeletal pain. Definition of Musculoskeletal Pain: any pain in body, included muscle and joint, which caused a restriction of running or training for at least 1 day. Design: Cross sectional survey. Methods: A total of 100 half and full marathon runners from JB and KL marathon event were participated in this study. The self-reported questionnaire was used in this study and runners were asked to complete the questionnaire, which included demographic data, training characteristic, pain assessment, diagnosis and previous injury. Results: The prevalence of musculoskeletal pain was 52%. The knee (28%) and lower leg (28%) was frequent reported pain area. Data showed there is no significant difference for prevalence of musculoskeletal pain in between half marathon runners and full marathon runners (p= 0.261). Conclusion: The prevalence of musculoskeletal pain among half and full marathon runners were substantially high.80.8% of the runners were ignored the pain. Therefore, physiotherapists are important in implementing the prevention, awareness and interventions strategies in order to avoid worsening of injuries.

Keywords: Marathon Runners; Running Pain; Overuse Injury Prevalence.