No one wants to DNS, but one of the single greatest strategies for continuing to run healthy and strong is in knowing when to pull out of a race due to injury, fatigue, exhaustion or any number of other things. It is, however, still one of the hardest decisions a runner can make.

When you get injured after signing up and training for an event, your mind still wants to race, but your body isn’t able to do so without risk.

Just because we are technically able to struggle through a race doesn’t mean we always should. Here is the one question to ask yourself when you’re faced with the decision of whether or not to race due to injury:

Can I run without altering my stride due to pain?

Within running, there is this notion that you can 'run through the pain' and in some cases this is correct, but not all pain is created equal. There is a pain that comes from exertion, a type 2 sort of pain where you're working hard, muscles are burning and yes it hurts, but it's not damaging you. Then there is the other kind of pain, often localised to one part of the body and this is the pain to be very wary of.

Updated: 27 April 2022 -

If the answer is yes, then you’ve got your answer: You can run the race, but modify your expectations, especially if your training wasn’t as complete as it could have been.

If the answer is no, it’s best to make the difficult decision to back out of the race and invest in healing and recovery. Running with an altered stride exacerbates the current injury and may create another elsewhere. You end up delaying your recovery o full fitness.

Other reasons to not run a race

Not making it to a start line can happen for many reasons and injury aside, making the decision on whether to race or not when battling exhaustion, fatigue, insomnia, illness and any number of other debilitating conditions really comes down to the individual. It's worth remembering that sometimes it’s the races we don’t run that have the greatest positive impact on our performance in the long run; so if in doubt, sit it out.

A few things that can help ease the pain

  • Communicate with the race to see if they will defer your race entry until next year. This can help minimise the financial blow and set a new goal for you when you’re healthy enough to race.
  • Volunteer instead. You’ll gain a whole new perspective on the other side of the race and earn some major karma to boot.
  • Focus on training to heal rather than thinking of it as a failure. Elite athletes don’t risk racing on an injury and neither should everyday runners. It’s all part of the journey of being a wise athlete. You win some and you lose some.