Marathon running significantly increases breathing volumes and, consequently, air pollution inhalation doses. This is of special concern for elite athletes who ventilate at very high rates. However, race organizers and sport governing bodies have little guidance to support events scheduling to protect runners. A key limitation is the lack of hyper-local, high temporal resolution air quality data representative of exposure along the racecourse. This work aimed to understand the air pollution exposures and dose inhaled by athletes, by means of a dynamic monitoring methodology designed for road races. Air quality monitors were deployed during three marathons, monitoring nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone (O3), particulate matter (PMx), air temperature, and relative humidity. One fixed monitor was installed at the Start/Finish line and one mobile monitor followed the women elite runner pack. The data from the fixed monitors, deployed prior the race, described daily air pollution trends. Mobile monitors in combination with heatmap analysis facilitated the hyper-local characterization of athletes' exposures and helped identify local hotspots (e.g., areas prone to PM resuspension) which should be preferably bypassed. The estimation of inhaled doses disaggregated by gender and ventilation showed that doses inhaled by last finishers may be equal or higher than those inhaled by first finishers for O3 and PMx, due to longer exposures as well as the increase of these pollutants over time (e.g., 58.2 ± 9.6 and 72.1 ± 23.7 μg of PM2.5 for first and last man during Rome marathon). Similarly, men received significantly higher doses than women due to their higher ventilation rate, with differences of 31-114 μg for NO2, 79-232 μg for O3, and 6-41 μg for PMx. Finally, the aggregated data obtained during the 4 week- period prior the marathon can support better race scheduling by the organizers and provide actionable information to mitigate air pollution impacts on athletes' health and performance.
Keywords: Air quality; Amateur and elite runners; Athletics; Gender; Inhaled dose; Urban race.
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