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APPLIED RESEARCH
The Sport Psychologist, 2014, 28, 22-35
http://dx.doi.org/10.1123/tsp.2013-0008
© 2014 Human Kinetics, Inc.
The authors are with the Faculty of Physical Education and
Receration, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.
Exploring Experiences of Running an Ultramarathon
Nicholas L. Holt, Homan Lee, Youngoh Kim, and Kyra Klein
University of Alberta
The overall purpose of this study was to examine individuals’ experiences of running an ultramarathon. Fol-
lowing pilot work data were collected with six people who entered the 2012 Canadian Death Race. Participants
were interviewed before the race, took photographs and made video recordings during the race, wrote a summary
of their experience, and attended a focus group after the race. The research team also interviewed participants
during the race. Before the race participants had mixed emotions. During the race they experienced numer-
ous stressors (i.e., cramping and injuries, gastrointestinal problems, and thoughts about quitting). They used
coping strategies such as making small goals, engaging in a mental/physical battle, monitoring pace, nutrition,
and hydration, and social support. After the race, nonnishers experienced dejection or acceptance whereas
nishers commented on the race as a major life experience. These ndings provide some insights into factors
involved in attempting to complete ultramarathons and offer some implications for applied sport psychology.
Ultra-endurance sports—such as long-distance road
and mountain bike races, open-water swimming, and
Ironman triathlon—were once the realm of a handful
of ‘hardcore’ athletes but have grown in popularity and
become mass participation sports. We examined the expe-
riences of individuals who compete in ultramarathons
(races longer than the traditional marathon distance of
42.195 km), often covering distances in excess of 100
km over trails and mountain paths. Ultramarathon run-
ning as a mass participation sport took hold in the 1980s,
and its popularity has surged over the past two decades
(Knechtle, 2012). For example, in North America, the
annual number of races and race nishers increased
signicantly from 1997 to 2008, with over 2,500 solo
nishers of 53 ultramarathons in 2008 (Hoffman, Ong,
& Wang, 2010). Ultramarathonrunning.com listed 746
races scheduled for 2013–2014. Other indicators of
the growing popularity of the sport include bestselling
autobiographical books from prestigious ultramarathon
runners (e.g., Ayres, 2012; Jurek, 2012; Karnazes, 2006;
Roll, 2012) and award-winning documentaries (e.g.,
Thompson, 2012).
The successful completion of ultramarathons
requires both physical and psychological capabilities
(Noakes, 2006), but there is relatively little coverage
of psychological aspects of ultramarathon running in
the literature (Micklewright et al., 2009). In fact, many
questions about ultramarathon running remain. There are
even fundamental differences of opinion about the sport
from a biological evolutionary perspective. Bramble
and Lieberman (2004) argued ultramarathons are an
“evolutionary hangover” from humans’ hunting and
scavenging lifestyles, and the human body is, therefore,
well-adapted to long-distance running. On the other hand,
Pearson (2006) suggested ultra-endurance athletes push
their bodies to go beyond ordinary limits. Clearly, there
is scientic interest in factors that inuence individuals’
performances in such demanding contexts.
Perhaps not surprisingly, research shows the
completion of ultra-endurance events requires athletes
to overcome extreme psychological and physiological
challenges relating to energy intake, hydration, digestion,
sleep deprivation, intense fatigue, negative cognitions,
and a range of unpleasant emotions, which worsen over
the course of a race (Bowen, Adams, & Myburgh, 2005;
Bull, 1992; Knechtle, Enggist, & Jehle, 2005; Lane &
Wilson, 2011; Smith, Walsh, & Dement, 1998). Several
of these factors may interact. For example, dehydration
from heat stress or exercise has a negative inuence on
cognitive performance (Cian, Barraud, Melin, & Raphel,
2001). Little is known about how athletes cope with these
issues during races (Micklewright et al., 2009), an issue
the current study addressed.
Descriptive studies have provided insights into the
demographic prole of ultramarathon runners. A study
of ultramarathoners in North American races showed
they were generally men (80.2%), married (70.1%), and
had bachelor’s (43.6%) or graduate (37.2%) degrees
(Hoffman & Fogard, 2012). Based on a recent review,
Knechtle (2012) concluded ultramarathon runners tend
to be master’s athletes, with broad experience of running,
who train differently than marathoners. But whereas some
distinct demographic and training factors are associated
with ultramarathon runners, studies have failed to clearly
demonstrate personality traits that predispose individuals
to participate in ultramarathons. For example, in a study
of 54 participants in the Iditasport (foot) ultra-race in
Alaska, compared with a normative sample, participants
Ultramarathon Running 23
scored higher on personality traits such as extraversion
and experience seeking (Hughes, Case, Stuempe, &
Evans, 2003). However, no signicant differences were
found between athletes and the norm group on traits of
neuroticism, agreeableness, contentiousness, boredom
susceptibility, or thrill/adventure seeking. Furthermore,
no significant within-group differences were found
among the athletes in relation to age, gender, or race
division.
One line of research focused on experiences of run-
ning ultramarathons involves issues relating to runners’
mood and emotions. For example, Tharion, Strowman,
and Rauch (1998) examined mood states among 56
males who entered 50-mile and 100-mile races in the
U.S. Participants completed the Prole of Mood States
(POMS; Lorr & McNair, 1982) 12 hr before the start of
the race and within one hour of the end of the race. Par-
ticipants had the classic iceberg prole of mood states,
and running the ultramarathons had a signicant effect
on all mood factors (pre- to post-race) with the excep-
tion of anger. Specically, tension, vigor, and fatigue
signicantly decreased after the race, while depression
and confusion increased. No signicant differences were
noted between the race nishers and nonnishers except
for fatigue. That is, nishers reported greater fatigue
than nonnishers, which the researchers attributed to
the fact that the nishers ran farther and for a longer
period of time. In terms of fatigue, other research (with
participants from a 24-hr ultramarathon in France)
showed that it took runners about two weeks to return to
prerace levels of stress and recovery (Nicolas, Banizette,
& Millet, 2011).
Lane and Wilson (2011) examined emotions among
34 runners in the 282 km Marathon of Britain, a six-stage
race held over six days. Participants completed measures
of trait emotional intelligence before the race. Mood state
was assessed using the Brunel Mood Scale (BRUMS:
Terry, Lane, & Fogarty, 2003)—a shortened version of
POMS, along with measures of happiness and calmness.
Participants completed the BRUMS twice per day, once at
breakfast and once at the end of each stage. Participants
with high emotional intelligence scores also reported
higher pleasant moods (e.g., calmness and happiness) and
lower unpleasant moods (e.g., anger, confusion, depres-
sion, fatigue, and tension) than participants with low
emotional intelligence scores. This study advanced the
literature beyond basic descriptions of mood proles but,
as Lane and Wilson acknowledged, was limited by the fact
that it did not assess strategies athletes may use during
a race to regulate mood and emotions. In other words,
questions about how athletes cope with the demands of
running ultramarathons remain.
Micklewright et al. (2009) investigated associations
between mood changes and perceived exertion among
eight runners in a 73 km mountain race in South Africa
using repeated measures of the POMS and the Borg
scale. Participants reported increased confusion before
the start of the race, which may have been indicative of an
anticipatory affective state based on their thoughts about
the impending race. Increased confusion was not associ-
ated with overall race performance. Linear increases in
perceived exertion were reported as the race progressed,
and runners modulated their running speed (i.e., pace) to
prevent premature fatigue. Runners were less conserva-
tive about monitoring their pace during the latter stages of
the race as their certainty of nishing increased. Similar to
other studies (e.g., Kirkby, 1996; Lane & Wilson, 2011;
Tharion et al., 1998), increased fatigue and confusion
and reduced vigor were observed post-race. Furthermore,
failing to meet performance goals appeared to exacerbate
unpleasant post-mood states. The authors concluded
that ultramarathon runners’ performance appraisals
continually change during a race, and these appraisals
appear to inuence mood. Given that appraisal is part
of the coping process (Lazarus, 1999), these ndings
again indicate that it may be useful to understand more
about how ultramarathoners cope with the performance
demands of their sport.
The cognitive strategies used by marathon runners
(as opposed to ultramarathoners) have received attention
in the literature. In seminal work, Morgan and Pollock
(1977) proposed elite runners associate to maintain
awareness of physical factors critical to performance,
whereas nonelite runners disassociate to distract them-
selves from such sensory feedback. Masters and Lam-
bert (1989) found associative strategies were related to
faster performances among marathon runners and more
likely to be used by runners who reported high levels
of drive/competition (as opposed to being elite per se).
Stevinson and Biddle (1998) found, among a sample
of 66 nonelite marathon runners, most reported inward
monitoring of physical sensations (i.e., attention focused
inwardly on how body feels, such as breathing, muscle
soreness, thirst, or fatigue). However, inward distraction
(i.e., attention focused inwardly on anything irrelevant to
the task such as daydreaming) was far more prevalent for
runners who “hit the wall” during the race. Overall, these
studies highlight the importance of associative thinking
and, as Stevinson and Biddle concluded, “distraction
should be avoided during the race” (p. 234). But, in
the context of an ultramarathon, it seems unlikely that
runners can avoid using distraction/dissociative strate-
gies given the length of races. Indeed, in a case study
of a 38-year-old female ultramarathon runner, Kirkby
(1996) collected repeated measures of cognitions during
a 48-hr race and coded 70.6% of the participant’s com-
ments as associative strategies (in which attention was
focused on physiological and other performance relevant
stimuli to enhance effort level) and 29.4% as dissocia-
tive strategies (attempts to purposefully distract from
physiological and other performance related stimuli).
The use of these strategies shifted during the race for
unidentied reasons.
One study specically examined cognitive orienta-
tions of ultramarathon runners. Acevedo, Dzewaltowski,
Gill, and Noble (1992) had 112 runners from two of the
premiere 100-mile ultramarathons in the U.S. (West-
ern States Endurance Run and Leadville Trail Run)
24 Holt et al.
complete questionnaires before their races. Constructs
including sport orientation, trait sport condence, com-
mitment to running, and internal/external cognitions
were assessed along with an open-ended item that
required participants to list their thoughts while racing.
Compared with normative scores from other research
with athletes, the ultramarathon runners scored higher
on condence, commitment to running, competitive-
ness, goal orientation and lower on win orientation.
They were also highly committed to time goals, but
not to place (i.e., race nishing position) goals. Time
goals were the strongest predictor of actual nishing
times. Contrary to other studies (e.g., Kirkby, 1996;
Stevinson & Biddle, 1998) responses to open-ended
questions revealed the majority of participants used
predominately external thoughts during races, including
thoughts related to music, sexual and sport fantasies,
making friends, imaginary vacations, and the beauty of
the course. Acevedo et al. (1992) noted that the written
responses to the open-ended questions were important
for describing participants’ experiences of ultramara-
thons, which indicated qualitative approaches may be
useful for collecting data in these competitive settings.
However, because the questionnaires were completed
before the races, these results presumably referred to
participants’ recollections of previous races, and it may
be possible to advance our understanding of experiences
of running ultramarathons by collecting data before,
during, and after specic races.
The number of sport psychology consultants who
currently work with ultramarathon runners is unknown.
Given the growing popularity of the sport, the dedication
required to compete, and the fact that participants tend
to be middle-aged, middle-class individuals (Hoffman
& Fogard, 2012; Hoffman et al., 2010) who presumably
have disposable income to spend on sport science support,
we suspect that ultramarathon runners will increasingly
seek out the services of sport psychology consultants in
the future. In fact, Bull (1992) published a case study
of his applied work with an ultramarathon runner over
two decades ago, demonstrating there has been long-
standing interest in the sport in the sport psychology
community. It is, of course, important for consultants to
have an understanding of the demands of their clients’
sport, and Acevedo et al. (1992) highlighted the need
for more research examining psychological aspects of
ultramarathon running to help practitioners “individualize
intervention techniques to specic sports” (p. 251). The
literature and applied work in this area could be informed
through the use of exploratory approaches that provide
accounts of individuals’ experiences of participating in
ultramarathons, which may aid our understanding of
how they cope with extraordinarily challenging physical
and psychological circumstances at the limits of human
endurance. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to
examine individuals’ experiences of running ultramara-
thons. More specically, we wanted to understand more
about how they experienced running the 2012 Canadian
Death Race (CDR).
Method
Methodological Approach
Given that this study focused on experiences of run-
ning ultramarathons, the methodology of Interpretative
Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used because it
is designed to examine how individuals make sense of
life experiences (Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009). The
interpretive philosophical paradigm is most consistent
with IPA (Smith & Osborn, 2003). Adopting this inter-
pretive paradigm, we approached this study with the
internal-idealist ontological view that there is no singular
reality and individuals hold their own unique views based
on personal cognitions, and a subjectivist-idiographic
epistemology (Sparkes, 1992). That is, we assumed that
we, the researchers, had an active role in interpreting how
the participants made sense of their personal and social
world (Smith & Osborn, 2003).
Procedure
Following Research Ethics Board approval participants
were recruited via an e-mail sent to the list serve of a local
running group eight weeks before the race. The inclusion
criterion was to recruit participants who aimed to com-
plete the August 2012 CDR as a soloist. However, we
made it clear that participants would be included in all the
study procedures regardless of whether they completed
the race. We excluded professional/corporate-backed
elite athletes because we wanted to draw our sample
from the individuals who represent the vast majority
of ultramarathon runners. Potential participants were
informed they would be included in the study on a rst-
come rst-served basis.
The sample size was set, a priori, at six. This was
consistent with the IPA recommendation that “ve or six
as a reasonable sample size… [As] this provides enough
cases to examine similarities and differences between
participants but not so many that one is in danger of
being overwhelmed by the amount of data generated”
(Smith & Osborn, 2003, pp. 54–55). Within one week of
sending the recruitment e-mail, we received replies from
nine people. Two people were not actually competing in
the CDR but another ultramarathon held earlier in the
summer. They agreed to assist us with pilot work. We
accepted the next six people who responded. However,
one respondent picked up an injury and withdrew four
weeks before the race (before any data had been col-
lected). At this point, we invited the remaining person
who had expressed interest in the study to participate.
Participants
Five participants were male, and one was female. All were
white, educated, middle-class professionals who resided
in Canada. All had previously completed ultramarathons
but had varying levels of experience with the CDR. John
was 58 years old, originally from England, competing in
his rst solo CDR. Bryan was 66 years old, also originally
Ultramarathon Running 25
from England, and had previously completed the CDR
as a soloist seven times. Andrew was 23 years old and
competing in his rst solo CDR. Tara was 35 years old
and competing in her rst solo CDR. Ted was 56 years
old and competing in his rst solo CDR. Richard was 39
years old, originally from New Zealand, competing in his
second solo CDR. These are the participants’ real names
because, as explained in the consent materials, conden-
tiality and anonymity were not provided because of the
video documentary we created to disseminate the ndings
to the public (discussed later). All participants agreed to
these conditions and provided written informed consent.
Data Collection
Pilot Work.
One male (aged 59 years) and one
female (aged 28 years) participated in pilot work to
help develop the data collection protocols. They were
the individuals who replied to our recruitment e-mail
but had not entered the CDR. Both participants had
previously entered several ultramarathon mountain
runs, including the CDR. They were interviewed one
week before and two weeks following an 148 km
ultramarathon held in July 2012 (three weeks before
the CDR). Participants also took digital cameras with
them during the race to record audio/visual footage
and test the feasibility of our study procedures. Neither
participant nished the race. Data from their interviews
were transcribed verbatim and reviewed to establish
the appropriateness of the interview guides, rene
and/or add questions as needed, and establish suitable
prompts/strategies for the during race video interviews.
The interviews also provided a training opportunity for
the interviewer.
There were several reasons why we wanted to collect
audio/visual footage. First, it provided a way of collecting
real-time data during the race, which we thought would
give an insight into participants’ experiences almost
immediately. Second, visual techniques have become
an increasingly popular means of data collection in
qualitative research because they can provide additional
layers of detail and richness that may not be captured by
audio data alone (Pink, 2006). Finally, from the outset of
the study, we planned to create a short video documen-
tary (reported later), so the personal audio/visual data
recorded by participants would add to the video footage
recorded by the researchers.
Pre-Race Individual Interview. All six participants
completed an individual semistructured interview 10 to
14 days before the CDR. This time period was chosen
because it was sufciently close to the race that the
participants had completed most of their training and
were tapering and doing their nal preparations (and
therefore were thinking/had thought about specific
details of the race). It also provided the research team
with sufcient time to have the interviews transcribed
and returned to the participants before the race, and for
us to initially review the transcripts to ensure we were
prepared for data collection during the race. Interviews
were conducted in a private ofce on the university
campus and lasted approximately 60 min. The main
purpose of these interviews was to establish a sense of
rapport with the participants and build a level of trust
which, we thought, would facilitate their willingness to
talk to us during the race itself. Using the IPA approach,
the interviews started with the most general question
possible, and probing questions or prompts were used
to facilitate discussion of interesting or important issues
(Smith & Osborn, 2003). Hence, we had a set of guiding
questions but approached the interviews in a exible
manner. After some basic demographic questions (i.e.,
age, ethnicity, occupation) and background questions
(relating to sporting and ultramarathon running
history) the general question asked to commence the
interview was “What rst comes to mind when I say
‘What is your most memorable experience of running
in ultramarathons?’” Other guiding questions were:
“Reecting on your training this season, what are some
of the main challenges you have faced?” “How have
you attempted to manage these challenges?” “Looking
ahead to the CDR, what are some of the challenges
you anticipate? How do you plan to manage these
challenges?” At the end of the interview, we claried
the remaining study protocol and issued each participant
with a small digital camera. Interviews were transcribed
by a professional transcribing service, checked against
the audio tapes by the researcher, and returned to the
participants before the race.
During-Race Personal Audio/Video Recording. During
the race, participants were asked to take photographs and
video with the digital cameras. They could either carry the
cameras on the course or give them to members of their
support crew to take photos/make recordings during the
transition points/aid stations. This provision was made
because during the pilot work there were concerns about
the extra space the cameras took in participants’ packs.
As we had established from our pilot work, participants
were free to make recordings at their convenience (rather
than, for example, on some prearranged schedule), so it is
unlikely this had an undue inuence on their experience
of the race. This decision was also consistent with
Hoffman, Lee, Zhao, and Tsodikov’s (2007) observation
that, given the considerable challenges of running an
ultramarathon, it is necessary for researchers to avoid
signicant intrusions. Hence, in our study, participants
could simply choose not to make recordings/take photos,
and in fact none of the three nishers used the cameras
beyond Leg 3, instead leaving them with their support
crews. Recordings were used in data analysis (reported
below). The photographs were not used as data, per se,
but helped provide context for the other data provided by
participants and were used in the documentary created
for knowledge dissemination.
During-Race Video Interviews.
Two members of
the research team shot video interviews during the
race. Participants were located at the start line and
asked about their expectations, goals, thoughts, and
26 Holt et al.
emotions. The researchers were then present at each
of the transition points/aid stations and recorded short
video interviews with the participants. Again, to be
consistent with IPA (and based on our pilot work), the
questions posed were general and exploratory, designed
to obtain information about participants’ experiences,
thoughts, and emotional state during the race. There
was no formal interview guide, but we had some basic
prompts, which included asking participants: “What
are you feeling/thinking right now?” “What are you
concerned about?” We also reacted to the participants’
situation (e.g., asking those participants who were
timed out to explain what happened and how they felt).
Approximately three hours of video interview footage
was recorded, and verbal comments were transcribed
and used in the analysis.
Post-Race Personal Written Essays. One week after
the race participants were asked to write a personal
summary of their race experience and e-mail it to the lead
researcher. Writing personal stories is a data collection
technique that has previously been used in qualitative
research (Elizabeth, 2008) and, in our study, provided
examples to complement data collected through other
techniques. In addition, we wanted the participants to
write their recollections soon after the race to ensure their
memories were fresh (because the focus group was not
held until four weeks after the race). The lead researcher
provided them with an example, but it was emphasized
participants should provide their own story about the
race. The essays were 2–4 pages (single-spaced), and
these data were used in the analysis.
Post-Race Focus Group Interview. Four weeks after
the race, all participants attended a focus group interview
that lasted two and a half hours. Guidelines for conducting
focus groups were followed (Kitzinger, 1994; Morgan,
1997). One of the researchers moderated the focus group
while another took care of organizational issues (e.g.,
setting up audio recording devices, noting the order of
speakers, etc.). Participants were told that the focus group
should be a conversation about their experiences during
the race. To provide some structure the moderator used
a questioning route that involved asking participants
to share their highlights and low points of the race and
discuss how they overcame the challenges they faced (or
failed to overcome these challenges in some cases). The
focus group became a free-owing conversation. The
moderator intervened to keep the conservation on track
and ensure all participants contributed their thoughts
on particular issues that arose. The focus group was
transcribed by a professional transcribing service. The
written transcript was checked by the researcher who
moderated the focus group and compared with the audio
recordings and any inaccuracies were corrected (such as
which participant was speaking). At the end of the focus
group, participants were shown the rst cut of the video
documentary and given a gift certicate for $100 to the
running store of their choice as a token of appreciation
for their involvement in the research.
Data Analysis
The researchers met at least once a week, beginning
during participant recruitment and continuing throughout
the study, to discuss and debrief about data collection,
analysis, and the nal results. Consistent with IPA, and
the philosophical underpinnings of this study (i.e., the
understanding that individual’s possess their own unique
views), we commenced with an idiographic analytic
approach, whereby each participant’s data set was ini-
tially assessed individually (Smith & Osborn, 2003).
This provided individualized perspectives so that later
interpretations remained grounded within the partici-
pants’ accounts. Whereas we constantly examined data
as they were collected (e.g., creating the rst iteration of
the participant’s individual experiences immediately fol-
lowing the race), the main phase of data analysis and rep-
resentation/writing was completed after the focus group.
Following Smith and Osborn (2003), individual nar-
rative proles of each participant’s race story were written
by extracting pertinent information from each individual’s
pre-race interviews, during-race video interviews, post-
race essay, and responses during the focus group. These
individual narratives were intended to capture the key
essential elements of each participant’s race experience.
Upon completion of the individual narratives all par-
ticipants’ data were then reduced to a list of key themes.
These themes were created by reviewing each participant’s
data set and, using line-by-line analysis, identifying key
issues that could be grouped by specic terms/concepts.
No predetermined theoretical framework or constructs
were deductively imposed during this part of the analysis.
Rather, the applicability of theoretical frameworks and
constructs was explored in the last stage of the research
to create the interpretations of data associated with the
IPA approach (Smith et al., 2009). Specically, during the
last stage of analysis, we realized that some of the themes
across the participants’ proles could be organized very
broadly into a framework of stressors and coping. We
decided to apply a coping framework to the themes per-
taining to participants’ experience during the race because
it enabled us to advance our interpretation of the data.
Knowledge Dissemination:
The Video Documentary Short
As an alternate means of representing and disseminating
some ndings of this study to a wider (nonacademic)
audience, we created a video documentary short—which
is an established technique in qualitative research (see
Prosser, 2005). We used the individual stories and themes
identied through the qualitative data analysis as the
narrative threads for the documentary (Banks, 2008). As
noted above, the rst cut of the documentary was shown
to the participants during the focus group and their feed-
back resulted in some changes to the structure/ow of the
stories and a request for additional examples from one of
the participants. The revised cut was then screened to a
group of approximately 50 people at a mountain retreat/
Ultramarathon Running 27
seminar hosted by the university. Each person was asked
to provide written comments on (a) their general reaction
to the documentary and (b) suggestions for improve-
ments. The nal version was posted on YouTube (http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsuckZK78rM).
Methodological Rigor
Four principles can be used to assess the quality of IPA
research (Smith et al., 2009; Yardley, 2000). The rst
principle is sensitivity to context, which was addressed
through data collection and analysis processes. We
adopted a broad, open-ended approach and revisited ideas
throughout the data collection and analysis phases. The
second principle, commitment and rigor, was embedded
within the design of the study. We focused on one race
to ensure participants had experienced the same event,
which provided a focus for the study. Data collection and
analysis were concurrent, which enabled us to check and
verify interpretations during the research process. Mul-
tiple sources of data enabled us to attain a suitable level
of data saturation regarding each participant’s experience.
Working as a research team provided analytic balance.
An audit trail was maintained and reviewed regularly.
The use of techniques in this manner incrementally adds
to the methodological rigor of a study (Mayan, 2009).
The third principle, transparency and coherence, was
reected by the logical coherence between the method-
ology, philosophical approach, methods, and manner in
which the results are presented (e.g., the initial analysis
of individual narratives was coherent and logical with the
internal-idealist ontology). The nal principle is impact
and importance of the research. This will be addressed
in the discussion and the practical implications for sport
psychology practice presented later.
The execution of this study was aided by the fact that
the research team had experience and/or received training
in qualitative research and IPA. The lead researcher was
fairly well versed in a range of qualitative approaches,
and has previously published studies using IPA (Nicholls,
Holt, & Polman, 2005; Tamminen, Neely, & Holt, 2013).
The researcher responsible for data collection had taken
qualitative methods courses, read widely on qualitative
methods, and conducted data collection for several other
qualitative studies. In addition, he had used IPA for his
masters thesis research. Other members of the research
team received training on qualitative methods through
their involvement in the lead researcher’s laboratory
group. Finally, the pilot work also contributed to the
training and preparation of the research team.
One further issue that warrants attention—par-
ticularly when using IPA—was the fact that the lead
researcher has run several ultramarathons and completed
the 2012 CDR. Although his experience and knowledge
of the sport were valuable in terms of understanding the
context and interpreting the data, we were concerned his
preconceptions could have an overbearing inuence on
the results. Consequently, it was decided that he have
limited involvement in the data collection other than
being the rst point of contact (via e-mail) for the recruit-
ment strategy, e-mailing the participants to request their
written summaries of the race, and meeting them at the
focus group to thank them for their participation. The
lead researcher engaged in bracketing, which involved
writing a journal about his own views of ultramarathon
running and the CDR. The journal was completed daily
from May to August most evenings (with a couple of
exceptions) and included a log of his own training,
reections on the study, articles about running obtained
from various media sources, personal insights, memos
after each coding session, and ideas for the documentary
(e.g., music to be used, footage to show, ways to weave
the narrative threads together). He did not see any of
the participants during the race. Despite these extensive
efforts, it should be noted that bracketing a researcher’s
preconceptions and assumptions is a cyclical process and
can only be partially achieved (Smith et al., 2009), which
is why a team approach was used for the current study.
Results
Context and Overview
The CDR is held on a 125 km course in the Canadian
Rocky Mountains around the town of Grande Cache,
Alberta (see http://www.canadiandeathrace.com/). The
course includes over 5,100 m of elevation change with
three mountain summits. It is split into ve legs, each
with a designated cut-off time, and runners must com-
plete the entire course within 24 hr. Between each of the
legs there are transition stations where runners are met
by support crews. We studied the 2012 race, which was
run in a higher-than-normal ambient temperature (day-
time high of 25 °C) and completed by 133 of 369 solo
entrants (36%). Of the participants in this study, three
(John, Bryan, and Andrew) were disqualied for failing
to meet the cut-off time at the end of Leg 3 (after 67 km).
The other participants successfully completed the race,
Ted in a time of 23:44:03, Tara in a time of 23:33:15,
and Richard in a time of 23:05:51. We have organized
the results in a chronological manner, detailing pertinent
themes before, during, and after the race.
Pre-Race
Mixed Emotions. The participants’ affective states
were quite varied before the start of their race. When
we spoke to him at the start line, Andrew was positive
and upbeat. He said, “I actually feel really good” and
when we asked him if he was going to nish, he said
“Yeah. 100%.” On the other hand, Tara had a “lot of
pre-race anxiety, which is very normal for me. I was
very concerned about the heat forecasted and possible
injuries.” Other participants had what might be described
as mixed emotions when we spoke to them at the start
line. Bryan said, “I’m excited now. Yeah. An hour ago I
wasn’t… Well, when you wake up you’re kind of tired
and it’s a nice warm bed, you think ‘Do I really want
28 Holt et al.
to go through this?’” Ted was also quite upbeat and, it
seemed, rather philosophical. He told us “I feel great…
Looking forward to it.” When asked if he was trying
to make a particular time, he said “No. It’s all about
nishing. Not, no, not so much nishing but the road to
get there. It’s the path you follow. So it’s been fun. I’m
gonna nish. I’m condent. I’ve trained.” John summed
up this notion of mixed emotions nicely when he said,
“[name of friend] was asking if I felt nervous, but it’s a
long way, right? I feel nervous, but I don’t, I’m not, I’m
not agitated by it. I’m just respectful of the distance.”
During-Race Stressors
Cramping and Injuries. Cramping and injuries were
issues faced by all the participants, but these were most
problematic for Bryan, John, and Andrew, ultimately
leading to their disqualication at the end of Leg 3. They
each associated cramping with their inability to cope with
the ambient temperature. John was particularly distressed
about suffering from cramp relatively early in the race.
As he started Leg 2, he recalled “everything seemed to
go wrong all at once… my legs were cramping within 3
km… I was struggling.” During Leg 2, John was shooting
a video clip and fell backward “as both legs seized up.”
As he came toward the end of Leg 2, he recorded another
video clip and said: “I don’t know what happened but
[I’m] cramping all the time. I tried to run there just
along the street and… and there’s nothing there.” At this
point, John was groaning with pain and wincing, and his
mental anguish was reected by him questioning what
was happening to him. He said “How can that, how can I
have a cramp on the inside of my thigh and up my back?
Someone’s gotta explain that to me.”
Although he also experienced cramping due to the
heat, the specic problem that ended Andrew’s race was
knee pain. He said:
I got scared coming down Leg 2 [a long, steep
descent]. When my knees started really hurting…
You know that was denitely gonna impact my race.
And that was really frustrating… If I went slow, it
hurt just as bad, or more than if I was going fast. So
I went pretty fast down the mountain.
It got to the point where “My knees, I don’t know,
I just couldn’t handle Leg 2 and then it’s too hard to run
Leg 3, so yeah, I think it was denitely the knees. And
then I’m, ah the heat also slowed me down but that was.
I don’t know. If it wasn’t for my knees, I think I would
have denitely [nished].”
Gastrointestinal Problems. Covering such long
distances requires racers to consume a great deal of
food and drink. It was not uncommon for participants to
experience gastrointestinal problems. Of the nishers,
other than some early cramping, these problems tended
to become more pronounced during the middle and latter
stages of the race. For example, about half-way through
Leg 3, Richard remembered:
My stomach was kind of knotted up and nauseous.
The food I had eaten felt heavy and the coconut water
in my Camelback was not appealing at all. Eating
was out of the question as I thought for sure I would
vomit if I ate… One girl I know from previous races
who is tough as hell vomited right in front of me…
That kind of freaked me out a bit.
Tara also faced some problems in this respect during
the latter part of the race. She started the descent of
Mount Hamel (the highest elevation on the course) at
10:00 p.m. but “had to pee every 15 min and felt like I
had little control of my bladder…” She then gave us an
example of how one problem could easily lead to another.
At a particular moment, she realized she “had to pee very
badly [very] suddenly” and as she went into the bush to
relieve herself she “veered off the trail, tripped in a rut and
rolled my ankle.” Hence, these gastrointestinal problems
should not be viewed purely in isolation. Richard’s nausea
created nutritional problems and uncertainty, and Tara’s
problems directly caused an injury. In these ways the
stressor of gastrointestinal problems exacerbated other
concerns, particularly as the race progressed.
Thoughts About Quitting. Participants had to deal with
thoughts about quitting. John became preoccupied with
these thoughts during Leg 3. He said, “I am not a quitter,
but I knew I was in tough.” Indeed, as he had told us in
his pre-race interview:
You never want to quit. You wanna be pulled off the
race. You push yourself to the limit. And you say
“I’m not quitting”… I guess that’s in the ultra runner
mentality... If you make the cut-off time you’re going
on, no matter what you’re feeling like unless you
collapse or fall down.
John’s comments reect a type of view that seemed
to be quite prevalent—it was acceptable to be timed out
of a race (or to collapse) but simply opting to quit the race
was viewed with disdain. As the race progressed thoughts
about quitting appeared to become a stressor in their own
right. For instance, Richard was consumed with thoughts
about quitting during the large climb at the beginning of
Leg 4. He wrote “Going up the rst part of Hamel was
very difcult… I had no energy… I was moving very
slowly and felt my [hiking] poles were really the only
thing stopping me from sitting down.” He remembered
“some other soloists had quit and were descending back
down which was tough to see, and I nearly quit myself
and joined them.” He managed to nish Leg 4, and when
we spoke to him, he was clearly extremely fatigued and
his speech was slurred (most likely as a consequence of
dehydration). He gathered his thoughts and said:
Well, I don’t know why I’d give up, but the, the
thought was denitely in my mind to stop here. A lot.
Yeah. So I had a certain time in mind for nishing
and I had to let go of that, which is ne. I’ve done
that. I was really tired, and it was really hard going
up Mount Hamel. I had no energy, it was, I couldn’t
Ultramarathon Running 29
drink any water, I was dehydrated, and I felt really
shitty and wanted to give up. Really wanted to give
up. But I didn’t. I told myself that it wasn’t gonna
happen. Just, just gut it out to the end. And that’s
what I’m gonna do.
Richard’s comment reects how stressors did not
occur in isolation, but rather in some kind of accumula-
tive manner. His fatigue and gastrointestinal concerns
certainly seemed to contribute to a spiral of negative
self-talk and thoughts about quitting. But we understood
thoughts about quitting to be a stressor rather than the
consequence of fatigue and gastrointestinal concerns.
That is, because quitting was not part of the ultra-runner
mentality, these thoughts about quitting appeared to be a
stressor because they were a threat to participants’ goals
and beliefs about themselves as ultramarathon runners.
In a way, submitting to these thoughts about quitting
meant a runner failed to meet the mental challenge of
the race, which seemed to be a different type of demand
than cramping, injuries, and gastrointestinal problems.
During-Race Coping Strategies
Small Goals. One of the ways in which participants
kept going (whether they nished or not) was to think
about the race in small sections. Often participants
would think of the race in terms of each specic leg of
the course. For example, when he was struggling with
cramp, John said, “I forced myself to get going. I didn’t
think about time, just to go one section [leg] at a time.”
In fact, even during Leg 3 (after which he was timed
out), he kept with the strategy of breaking the race into
smaller chunks rather than the race as a whole, reporting
in his nal video entry “I’m trying to do 21 km in 2 hours
and 20 minutes. It’s a tall order, but you know what?
I’m gonna keep going and keep trying, right to the end.”
Richard broke the race down into even smaller, more
manageable, goals. He targeted a signicant point on Leg
4 (the ascent of Mount Hamel) and said, “I kinda had in
my head that if I got to the top of Hamel, you know, I’d
nish. Like I just had to make it there, and then I’d be
ne.” So, for Richard, ascending Hamel was the goal he
focused on achieving—especially when he was suffering
the most—rather than completing the race, per se. There
were other occasions when participants might break the
race down into even smaller goals, such as running for
10 min or to a point in the distance, such as particular
geographical feature.
Mental/Physical Battle. We coded a recurring theme
that described some ways in which participants tried to
cope with their race experience as a constant mental and
physical battle. This did not seem to be in response to a
particular stressor, but rather the accumulated challenges
participants faced. For example, Ted mentioned during
his prerace interview that “I believe that it’s a small
percentage of it is physical but a great deal of it is, ah, the
mental aspect, psychological aspect of just meeting the
challenge.” Similarly, discussing her experiences of other
races during her prerace interview, Tara said, “so many
parts of your body [are] shutting down. And so you’re
pushing with your mind, or your mind wants to shut
down, [so] you push with your body.” Richard provided a
very cogent example of this mental/physical battle when
it came to his thoughts about quitting. It took him 8.5 hrs
to complete the 36 km of Leg 4 and, reecting on this
part of the race, he wrote “at this point I realized it was
going to be a mental battle, my body was telling me to
stop.” He elaborated during the focus group:
You know you, your body’s telling you to stop, your
mind’s telling you to stop, you know? I’m like “I
already did this before… What am I trying to prove
by doing this again? This is ridiculous.” You’ve got
all this stuff going on inside your head. And I don’t
know why but I just couldn’t bring myself to stop
and turn around. I couldn’t do it. Like I wanted to
[quit], you know, at some level. But I just, I couldn’t.
I didn’t stop or anything like and, and say “OK I’m
gonna go down [to aid station].” I just, I just couldn’t,
I couldn’t quit.
Monitoring Pace, Nutrition, and Hydration. Finishers
monitored their pace carefully (whereas the nonnishers
just slowed down). For example, Tara became worried
about meeting the Leg 3 cut-off time because she had
some cramping in her quadriceps. She monitored her
pace very carefully, going just fast enough to nish Leg
3 only 15 min before the cut-off, while reserving some
energy for the latter stages of the race. Similarly, Ted
judged his overall race perfectly (nishing just 15 min
before the 24-hr cut off). He was very aware of his pace,
especially during the latter stages, commenting, “There
was certainly some concern about making the cut-off
on Leg 4 and Leg 5 because I was cutting it pretty ne.”
Although there are very few distance markers on the
course (one at half-way, another at 120 km), Ted knew
he had to complete the last 15 km in two hours because
he had been monitoring time/distance on his GPS device.
In the focus group he said he remembered thinking “I’m
not gonna do that in two hours” and made a conscious
effort to pick up his pace by staying with another runner.
We grouped the concept of monitoring pace as a
coping strategy along with the concepts of nutrition and
hydration because they appeared to work in conjunction
rather than separately. For example, if participants could
not eat, they would focus on drinking and perhaps slow
their pace, or if they lacked energy, they would increase
their food intake (gastrointestinal concerns permitting).
For example, Richard had struggled with gastrointesti-
nal problems and lacked energy on the climb of Hamel.
Although he could not eat, he focused on “being hydrated
[I] was taking small sips of water every 10 minutes hoping
I could start to feel better.”
Social Support. Different types of social support
seemed to play a role in helping participants cope with
the demands of the race. Spectators are only allowed at
the aid stations on the CDR course, and the vast majority
30 Holt et al.
of these spectators are involved in the race in some way,
whether as volunteers, support crews, or friends/family.
The support crew could provide tangible support. Bryan
explained that at a transition station “Everything’s packed
up. They [crew] give me my jacket and said ‘You go.’
Now that’s what you need from a support group. You see
you need that… that discipline, those direct, those orders
you need sometime, somebody to tell you what to do.”
The crew could also provide emotional support. In her
pre-race interview, Tara discussed the importance of her
support crew, telling us “The support system is basically
giving me condence and helping me get through.”
Indeed, she drew inspiration from her crew during the
race. For example, after walking 10 km down a forestry
road at 3:30 a.m. because her ankle injury had restricted
her ability to run, Tara was “greeted by my friends and
my boyfriend who came from Edmonton to surprise me”
and this provided her a great deal of encouragement.
Similarly, referring to emotional support from his support
crew, Richard said “for me to have my wife there and, and
this year we’re taking the kids up as well. Yeah. I mean
that’s what’s important to me, you know, just to have my
wife there is enough because she can, you know, give me
some encouragement.”
Participants drew upon the support of fellow racers
at times. For example, on Leg 4, Tara said she “enjoyed
chatting with different people” and “I met up with a guy
during the descent and completed Ambler Loop [a 5km
traverse] with him.” As we mentioned previously, Ted
realized the need to increase his pace during the nal
stages and he “used” social support to help with this task.
He said “this gal that I’d hooked up, she and I just started
running and kept running and then all of a sudden there’s
[the] 120 km [marker], we got 5 km left. So, I mean, that’s
just giving you a boost.” As these examples from Tara and
Ted reect, there was a sense of camaraderie with other
runners. Richard gave a particularly interesting view of
camaraderie that may be rather unique to the nal stages
of a 125 km race when he said, “There were two other
soloists I could see in front of me when we came out onto
the road, I wanted to pass them before the nish and could
have but decided not to as I thought it would be rude of me
considering the effort we had all endured.” Hence, there
seemed to be a sense of camaraderie—between runners
and their support crews/friends/families and among the
runners themselves—that provided important sources of
social support.
Post-Race
Rejection Versus Acceptance. Perhaps not surprisingly
the nonnishers’ thoughts and emotions differed to those
of the nishers. But it was quite striking that, of the three
nonnishers, two (John and Andrew) expressed a sense
of dejection. For example, when we video interviewed
Andrew seconds after he was disqualied for missing
the Leg 3 cut-off and he said he was “pissed” and felt
“crappy.” When we asked him to explain what he was
thinking a little more, he said:
I wish I’d, I don’t know, just pushed it a bit harder I
guess. Like 11 minutes [past the cut-off time]. I don’t
know. [Interviewer: “So close, so close”]. Yeah, that’s
what makes it all the worse. I don’t know. I’ve never
been cut off of the cut-off time. I feel like it’s worse
than just quitting because of injuries or something.
Arrgh. I don’t know. It’s really frustrating.
On the other hand, Bryan expressed a sense of accep-
tance that he had failed to nish. He said:
Even though I didn’t make the cut-off at the end of
Leg 3, [Leg 1] and [Leg 2] actually went probably
better than the other races I’ve done, other Death
Races I’ve done. There wasn’t really any particular
low point, it was just an acceptance that when I, when
my back ceased up…But when my back ceased up
and I realized I couldn’t run, it was just, just accep-
tance that that’s the way it was.
During the focus group Bryan reiterated that he was
able to “accept his fate,” which he put down to the fact
that he had previously completed the race on several
occasions.
Major Life Experience. The words of two of the
nishers gave us the sense that completing this race was a
major life experience. For example, despite the problems
he encountered, Richard did indeed (as he told us at the
Leg 4/5 transition) “gut it out to the end.” When we spoke
to him just after the nish, he said:
Seriously, I’m really really happy that I stuck with
it. And it was really hard there and now I’m here
and it’s done, so I taught myself a lesson I guess,
just gotta stick with it and tough it out until you’re
done. That’s what it comes down to.
Here, Richard teaching himself a lesson appeared to
be important. Ted clearly emphasized the sense of accom-
plishment he experienced. At the nish line, he said:
I’m glad it’s over. That was tough. That was one of
the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. Just the,
you know to be on your feet and going, going, going
and then to nish at the last moment, well with a few
minutes left to spare. Makes you wonder, “Did I take
too long at my transition area?” You know, maybe
I shouldn’t have changed my socks the last time.
[Interviewer: “What was going through your head
as you crossed the nish line?”]. I did it.
Discussion
The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine
individuals’ experiences of running an ultramarathon.
Using a series of qualitative data collection techniques,
we were able to capture their stories of running the 2012
CDR. In accordance with IPA methodology (Smith et al.,
2009) we did not impose theory or constructs onto this
study a priori. However, there were some connections
Ultramarathon Running 31
to previous research that enabled further elaboration
upon and interpret the descriptive ndings and consider
implications for research and practice.
We coded participants’ prerace state as the theme
of mixed emotions in that there were both individual
differences as well as individuals reporting competing
emotions. In Micklewright et al.’s (2009) study, ultra-
marathon runners reported elevated confusion before the
start of a race (and our coding of mixed emotions may be
similar to confusion), but there were large deviations in
their scores, which the authors put down to differences
in cognitive appraisals of the race and runners’ readiness.
Hence, it may not be unusual for ultramarathon runners
to experience some confusing affective states before
a race. Furthermore, Micklewright et al. suggested
ultramarathon runners tend to make overly optimistic
performance predictions and, because failing to meet
these expectations exacerbates unpleasant post-race mood
states, sport psychology consultants should take care in
using athletes’ (overly optimistic) goals as a basis for
interventions. Building on this, an applied implication
arising from our study is the importance of educating
ultramarathon runners to be aware of, and prepared for,
the possibility they may experience some pre-race confu-
sion and competing emotions; but ultramarathon runners
should also know that such states do appear to have sig-
nicant performance effects other than those related to
unpleasant post-race mood states/emotions, particularly
if the outcome is unfavorable (cf. Lane & Wilson, 2011;
Tharion et al., 1998).
Lane and Wilson (2011) suggested it is possible
endurance athletes accept feelings of fatigue as a necessary
part of pursuing challenging goals, but if athletes interpret
fatigue as being indicative of their inability to cope and
must slow down or stop this will lead to frustration and
anger due to a failure to attain performance goals. This
interpretation certainly applied to John and Andrew, who
both expressed dejection with being timed out. Notably
they were both entering the CDR race for the rst time. On
the other hand, Bryan displayed an acceptance of his DNF
more readily, put down to the fact he had completed the
race on seven previous occasions. Hence, prior experience
may help ultramarathon runners deal with the negative
psychological consequences of not nishing.
We organized the during race themes broadly
around a framework of coping. Coping can be dened
as a constantly changing cognitive, behavioral, and
affective process individuals use to manage stressors
that are appraised as taxing or exceeding their resources
(Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). A stressor can be dened
as an event or situation the individual appraises as taxing
or exceeding his or her resources. More specically, pri-
mary appraisal involves the evaluation of the relevance of
events to individuals’ goal commitments, values, beliefs
about self and the world, and situational intentions. These
appraisals can produce different types of consequences,
which Lazarus (1999) classied in terms of harm/loss
(damage has already occurred), threat (damage may occur
in the future), challenge (a positive appraisal whereby the
individual is enthusiastic about the forthcoming struggle),
or benet (where there is a possibility for gain). In our
research, some of the most notable appraisals of stressors
were cramping and injury, gastrointestinal problems, and
thoughts about quitting. These were all either appraisals
of harm/loss (e.g., an injury having already occurred) or
threat (e.g., gastrointestinal concerns posing a threat to
the completion of the race).
Previous studies have identified stressors ultra-
marathon runners experience include issues relating to
energy intake, hydration, digestion, sleep deprivation,
intense fatigue, negative cognitions, and unpleasant
emotions (Bowen et al., 2005; Bull, 1992; Knechtle et
al., 2005; Lane & Wilson, 2011; Smith et al., 1998). The
stressors identied in our study generally corroborated
these previous findings and add to the literature by
depicting some of the ways in which people actually
experienced these issues and how they struggled through
them. As we demonstrated, stressors tended to accumu-
late rather than be experienced in isolation. For instance,
issues related to cramping and gastrointestinal problems
may go hand-in-hand, particularly given the high ambient
temperature on race day. Along with injuries, cramping
and gastrointestinal symptoms limited the performance
of participants in our study. Similarly, in their analysis
of the 500 entrants in two 161 km ultramarathons in the
U.S., Hoffman and Fogard (2012) found nausea and/
or vomiting were the main reason runners dropped out
of races. As Hoffman and Fogard discussed, while gas-
trointestinal problems can be an annoyance in shorter
races, they become important limiting factors in ultra-
marathons because uid and nutrition are essential for
these longer events. Some runners may unintentionally
induce gastrointestinal problems by consuming uid and
nutrition at a rate that exceeds gastric emptying. Their
conclusions, along with the current ndings, highlight
the need for ultramarathon runners to cope by carefully
monitoring cramping and gastrointestinal issues—which
also appeared to be addressed through some of the coping
strategies discussed below.
Hanton, Neil, and Mellalieu (2008) argued that some
researchers using the Lazarus (1999) approach have mis-
takenly coded certain factors as stressors when in fact they
are the consequences of stressors rather than the initial
demands (e.g., from this perspective, coding negative
thoughts as a stressor would be inappropriate because
negative thoughts may be predicated on some other
demand). In the current study, it is possible that thoughts
about quitting could be viewed as a cognitive response/
outcome to stressors such as fatigue and gastrointestinal
concerns. However, we coded thoughts about quitting
as a stressor because, as the race progressed toward the
latter stages, these thoughts appeared to become a threat
to participants’ goals and beliefs about themselves as
ultramarathon runners, and perhaps their understanding
of the culture of the sport (i.e., quitting due to failing
to overcome the mental battle is likely viewed in a less
favorable manner than being timed out or retiring due to
injury). Thus, thoughts about quitting became a stressor
32 Holt et al.
because the thoughts themselves were the demand that
required a coping response. In other words, some par-
ticipants appraised thoughts about quitting as taxing
or exceeding their resources to cope with the thoughts
themselves. That said, we recognize there may be some
subtle interactions between appraisals and responses we
did not fully articulate in our results, particularly based
on the complex interplay between physical and mental
factors that seemed to interact, change, and (in some
cases) accumulate as the race progressed.
Secondary appraisal is a cognitive evaluation of
coping options (Lazarus, 1999; Lazarus & Folkman,
1984). Primary and secondary appraisals combine to form
the individuals’ evaluation of the person-environment
relationship, which gives rise to particular emotions and
coping responses. Coping can be used to manage emotions
arising from stressor appraisals, and coping can also act
as a mediator between an individual’s appraisals and their
emotional reactions (Lazarus, 1999). Lazarus grouped
coping responses in terms of the function they are intended
to attain. Attempting to change the person-environment
relationship is known as problem-focused coping and
attempting to regulate the emotion associated with the situ-
ation is known as emotion-focused coping. Our analysis
was not precise enough to differentiate between primary
and secondary appraisals or interactions between coping
responses and emotions, but we did provide some insights
into the coping strategies participants’ used to manage
race demands. That is, participants broke the race down
into smaller, more manageable goals, engaged in a mental/
physical battle, monitored pace, nutrition, and hydration,
and beneted from several types of social support. These
coping strategies may represent useful psychological skills
consultants can teach to ultra-endurance athletes.
Carefully monitoring pace, nutrition, and hydration
were a notable set of problem-focused strategies. These
strategies could further be considered a form of inward
monitoring of physical sensations. Although one study
of ultramarathon runners found they extensively used
distraction/disassociation (Acevedo et al., 1992), asso-
ciative thinking is a recommended cognitive strategy for
distance running (Masters & Lambert, 1989; Morgan &
Pollock, 1977; Stevinson & Biddle, 1998) and has also
been reported in research with triathletes, who focus on
monitoring pain, pace, and breathing more than disas-
sociation or distraction (Dolan, Houston, & Martin,
2011). There seemed to be some differences between
the finishers and nonfinishers in terms of how they
responded to their physical sensations. For example, the
nishers (Richard, Tara, and Ted) monitored their pace
very closely, decreasing it as needed, increasing it when
they could. The nishers also reported a great deal of
associative thinking about ways to deal with these physi-
cal sensations. In addition to pacing, they paid very close
attention to their nutrition and hydration. These ndings
highlight the importance of associative thinking/inward
monitoring in ultra-endurance events.
Participants described a mental and physical battle.
Although in some ways this concept referred to mental
and physical stressors, we coded it as a coping strategy
because there were times when they pushed with their
mind because their body was shutting down and other
times when they pushed with their body because they
mind was shutting down. There was an element of posi-
tive self-talk in this coping strategy, which is also the
most common coping strategy reported by triathletes
(Dolan, Houston, & Martin, 2011), swimmers (Thiese
& Huddleston, 1999) and marathon runners (Buman,
Omli, Giacobbi, & Brewer, 2008). Our ndings revealed
it was not merely a case of using positive self-talk, but
rather constantly battling between positive and negative
thoughts throughout the race and especially during the
latter stages. This was an interesting concept that does
not appear to have previously been reported in the litera-
ture, which may be related to the relatively scarcity of
research examining such issues over the course of such
long endurance events. The mental/physical battle sug-
gests some kind of switching between different types of
inward monitoring. From an applied perspective, it would
seem to be useful to teach ultramarathon runners about
the importance of shifting between different types of
physical/mental inward monitoring as a coping strategy.
Social support helped participants cope with the
demands of the race, both in terms of problem- and
emotion-focused coping. That is, participants appreci-
ated the logistical and practical support provided by their
crews but also the emotional support and encouragement
they received. A rather unique aspect of our ndings was
that participants also drew support from other racers.
Whereas teammates as a source of social support has
previously been reported in the literature (e.g., Holt &
Hogg, 2002), the notion of competitors providing social
support does not appear to have been widely considered.
It is possible that competitors as a source of support is a
unique feature of ultra-endurance sports. For example,
based on a sociological analysis, Atkinson (2008) argued
that triathletes form communities of pain to deal with the
suffering required to complete races. The literature could
be advanced with future studies of the ways in which
racers support each other. We suspect that more elite
ultramarathon runners (and/or elite athletes in other ultra-
endurance sports) may not draw social support from their
competitors—given that they can compete for cash prizes
or potential sponsorship deals. But for the vast majority of
ultramarathon runners, who have virtually no chance of
ever winning a race, a sense of support and camaraderie
between runners may be an important coping strategy.
Extrapolating from this nding, an interesting avenue for
future research would be to investigate the coping strate-
gies used by elite ultramarathon runners. Furthermore,
appraisals of stressors, emotions, and coping are inter-
related components of a coping process, and our ndings
revealed some of the complexity of this process. Given
the intense physiological and psychological demands of
ultramarathon running, it is likely that theoretically driven
studies examining the process of appraisal, emotion,
coping strategies, and their effectiveness, could make
valuable contributions to the literature.
Ultramarathon Running 33
A recent study involved 408 ultramarathon runners
completing an online survey to assess their perceptions
of mental toughness (Jaeschke & Sachs, 2012). Based on
qualitative analysis of responses to open-ended items, the
authors forwarded a denition of mental toughness for
ultramarathon running, which was “the ability to persist
and utilize mental skills to overcome perceived physical,
psychological, emotional, and environmental obstacles
in the relentless pursuit of a goal” (p. 64). Furthermore,
they highlighted that the need to overcome physical and
mental fatigue, emotional control to combat negative
thinking, pacing to prevent injury and address physical
needs, and the use of association/dissociation as needed.
Our ndings generally support these conclusions and,
by providing some detailed examples of the nature of
stressors and coping strategies, serve to create a more
complete explanation of psychological factors associated
with ultramarathon running.
Hughes et al. (2003) suggested future research
should look at how people “change as a result of par-
ticipation [in ultramarathons]” (p. 260). We provided
two examples—Ted’s admission it was the hardest thing
he had ever done in his life and Richard’s reference to
teaching himself a lesson—that indicate ultramarathoning
running may provide opportunities for growth. Given that,
according to some, ultramarathon running requires people
to push “beyond” the normal limits of human endurance
(Pearson, 2006), it would be reasonable to conclude that
such races are signicant moments in individuals’ lives.
Coping with extremely challenging circumstances may
create conditions for psychological growth (e.g., Tede-
schi & Calhoun, 2004). As such, in the future it may be
useful to use theories of growth-related coping to further
understand the ways in which people manage the chal-
lenges of racing and ways they may experience growth
as a result of participating in ultramarathons.
Finally, the creation of the short video documentary
as part of our knowledge dissemination strategy appears
to offer a promising avenue for communicating ndings
to the public. It was posted on YouTube on November 7,
2012, and as of March 17, 2014 had been viewed more
than 3,300 times. According to audience data provided by
YouTube, the video was most frequently viewed by users
in Canada, U.S., and New Zealand and among males aged
45 to 54 years, males aged 34 to 44 years, and females
aged 45 to 54 years. This mirrors the demographic prole
of ultramarathon runners (Hoffman et al., 2010), which
suggests the knowledge dissemination strategy may have
been somewhat effective to date in terms of reaching the
target audience. The documentary may offer a useful
resource for practitioners by providing graphic insights
into the sport and information they could show to endur-
ance athletes.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the participants for their dedication to the
success of this study and the organizing team of the North Face
Canadian Death Race for allowing us to conduct this research.
This study was funded by a President’s Grant for the Creative
and Performing Arts—Human Performance Scholarship Fund
from the University of Alberta. The authors have no formal
relationship with the organizers of the Canadian Death Race
and the results of this study were neither vetted nor approved
by the race organizers or sponsors.
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