PURPOSE: Physical or emotional symptoms can develop as a byproduct of the menstrual cycle and can be perceived negatively by female athletes. It is unclear if symptoms related to the menstrual cycle impact female runners. This study compared menstrual cycle-related symptoms to daily stress and recovery wellness scores among college-aged female club runners. We expected higher stress and lower recovery scores on days when athletes reported menstrual cycle-related symptoms compared to days in which they were asymptomatic.

 

METHODS: Eleven female runners (age=20.4 ±0.9 years) were recruited through a university club running team. All have had at least one period, are physiologically female, exercise at least 75 minutes/week, and competed in 1500m race distance or greater. Athletes completed a baseline survey to obtain demographics, menstrual cycle history, and current training habits. For 3 consecutive months, every evening a text message was sent with a link to the daily survey for each participant. The daily survey included the Short Stress Scale (SSS), Short Recovery Scale (SRS), questions about that day’s training, and menstrual cycle-related symptoms. Descriptive measures were calculated in addition to completing two-tailed dependent t-tests comparing SRS and SSS scores, respectively on symptomatic versus asymptomatic days. 

 

RESULTS: The mean (+SD) number of daily surveys completed per participant was 70 ±26 and daily run distance averaged 7.5 ±3.3 km. Participants reported menstrual cycle-related symptoms on an average of 21 ±18 percent of the days on which surveys were completed. On symptomatic days, the quantity of reported symptoms ranged from one to eleven with the most common symptoms reported being bloating [on 34% of all symptomatic observations, n=73], cramps [ 32.6%, n=70], and fatigue [25.1%, n=54]. Runners had no significant difference in recovery scores on asymptomatic days (SRS = 15.2 + 5.4) versus symptomatic days (SRS = 15.5 ±4.4, p = .742). Similar findings were also found for stress scores between asymptomatic days (SSS = 6.3 ±5.0) and symptomatic days (SSS = 6.5 ±4.4, p = .737). 

CONCLUSION: This sample of female runners reported having at least one menstrual cycle-related symptom on 21 percent of days during the study period with bloating, cramps, and fatigue being the most frequently reported symptoms. Our findings show no significant differences when comparing wellness survey scores for recovery and stress on days with menstrual cycle symptoms versus days without symptoms. While this prospective study demonstrated a frequent prevalence of menstrual cycle-related symptoms among female endurance runners, being symptomatic did not adversely affect self-reported recovery and stress scores.