Question of the week…
Why do you participate in endurance sports? What drives you? From where do you draw your mental strength? What is your mental approach?
…because I am no good at endurance sex!
Because it clears the mind, reduces stress, is good for the body, it’s fun (yes, fun!), It rewards those who are not afraid of hard work, keeps me out of trouble, and makes everything else that is difficult in life seem not so difficult by comparison.
Dave from VA
I’m european so… I do endurance sports because I suck playing football! 
I do endurance sports because I hate soccer =P
Except watching Portugal get beat by GREECE
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Because I am way to slow at the “50 Meter Freestyle” (which is the ultimate sporting event).
I hit my head too many times as a kid
Seriously though - there’s just something about pushing your mind and body to extreme limits that is hard to explain on paper. I think taking on the challenge of something you fear (for me running a marathon and the IM swim start) is part of it. For the mental approach, visualization and affirmations seem to work well. I had a pic of the IM swim start as my screen saver for 6 months!
Catharsis, isn’t that the term. I’m self punishing myself for a miserable self induced life. In the end most of us are running from our ghosts, I guess I just keep on. I’m driven cause I can’t handle the thought of doing nothing. Then I’d be a poor miserable fat person. I just need to figure out how to make money off of this.
It’s fun.
I’m driven by the desire to see new things, beautiful places and continuously improve. Plus, it’s fun.
My mental approach is do the best you can, control the things you can control, rest frequently and let the rest go.
There are a lot of reasons, but personally I like the fact that (speaking strictly as a MOPer) it means that your genetic inheritance, natural ability etc is not that important. On race day you can see who put in the hours and who didn’t.
If I turned up for the 100m sprint, no matter how I trained, there are guys who would beat me without putting in a day’s training in the last six months. This happens to me in the Dad’s race at my kids school now, and people look at me and say “but I thought you trained a lot”.
mDava
because I’m crazy and enjoy it.
my approach is to just do it and mental strength, well, guess I can take alot of pain.
Hi All
You know i ask my self that each time i roll up to the starting line! I’m 46 now so i’m not a spring chicken. And i’m a cyclist not one of you Tri kids, SO my races are not the multi hour suffer fest you put your self throught. but each time i go to the line for a 40K TT or a Cross race i know i’m in for a suffer fest for an hour or so! I think it because we as “Males” don’t all go off to war all time, or have to go hunt down dinner so we have to find some way to prove to our self’s that we’re strong? i just don’t know i have been a competitive cyclist for 17 years and before that i was a runner. i just don’t know any better! but i do know that o look forward to my top racing form, When it all seems so easy and you cna just fly! it must be a drug!
Dan…
The reason I participate is it’s fun, it’s challenging, and I love the way I smell after a 3 hour run or ride.
I like the look of peoples faces when I tell them what I did over the weekend, while they were sitting and watching tv all weekend.
Endurance sports is something I can train for on my own and rely/depend on only myself.
All my life I was the sprinter. Hated cross country…maybe hate is too strong a word, I just sucked at it. As I got older and couldn’t go fast enough to beat the kids in a lightpole to lightploe race anymore I realized that I needed something different. When my son challenged me to do this, I started out with a great amount of trepidation but after awhile, I found that I really enjoyed it. I’m a Clyde so going fast is one thing, going fast long is a whole 'nother ballgame.
John
The harder I train, the more beer I can drink … the more beer I drink, the harder I have to train. It’s like standing between two mirrors!!!
These are all great reasons…what are the goals? What do you want to gain from your participation? Better physical endurance? Mental endurance? Knowledge of limits? Meet opposite sex? Piss off Redneck Pickup Truck drivers?
i have thought about that a little bit… to answer your question, let me tell you what i tell my friends (it’s a little off the topic, but it should help explain it)
to my friends who are just starting to try to get in shape, especially to girls who i worry might develop some sort of complex about their appearance), i say this:
i never set physical goals. all my goals are performance based. i refuse to take a tape measure to my biceps- instead, i try to do 15 chinups when a month ago i could only do 12. in the same way, i never run to lose weight- instead, i try to set a personal record in the 5k. the results will be there, but knowing that overtraining would be detrimental to my performance keeps me from overdoing it (whereas if i was at peak performance but was 2 lbs overweight, i might do damage to myself).
to answer yur questions more directly, i hope to gain control of myself through triathlon. i have no control over a lot of other things (grades, the ladies, etc), but i and i alone am responsible for my fitness.
but the most overreaching goal of all is the need to compete… against myself (in races where i have no hope of winning but just want to pr), against others (in races where i could hypothetically win), and against the world (specifically, hills)
“what are the goals”
To try and beat last year’s time. Other than that, it’s about fun and fitness.