As I contemplated my weakness, I wondered what motivates us to participate in sport and carry on training in such conditions. There are many reasons people take up sports:

• Helping to lose weight
• Wanting to improve fitness
• Participating in a social activity
• Fulfilling a challenge to raise money for charity
• Completing an event in memory of a loved one.

Most of these factors are intrinsic motivators. Motivation to doing something because we want to for fun or pleasure, or the satisfaction we get mastering a skill or achieving a goal. But once the challenge has been completed, the weight lost and the fitness gained, to continue being intrinsically motivated we have to keep setting and achieving goals to obtain a sense of fulfilment. Aside from simple self enhancement what else continues to motivate us in sport?

Freud believed that the motivation to participate in sport was a natural need to express male sexuality. Another psychologist, Rogers, believed that rather than sexual impulses motivating us to play sport it’s the need for love, acceptance and respect from others. As well as seeking extrinsic incentives such as social approval and fame, other external factors providing motivation include materialistic rewards such as winning trophies, or life changes through financial gains.

Whilst these may be extrinsic motivation for elite sports people to push themselves harder in training and competition. There must be some other factor that doesn’t let us average athletes give up. We may enjoy the social aspect of our sport, yet we also happily train alone. Whilst our performance may occasionally make up the numbers in our clubs road race team, we generally rarely make an impact in the results of a race nor receive praise and admiration from our peers.  

Can there be other motivations for us to participate in our chosen sport and to carry on training? Often there is a psychological effect from sport as the brain releases pleasurable chemicals during continuous strenuous exercise. This ’runners high’ associated with the release of endorphins, is also thought to be contributed to by other chemicals such as adrenaline, serotonin and dopamine. 

Perhaps this is my motivation to keep training – the runners high I experience during a marathon. But maybe if I also craved social admiration I would be motivated to push myself even harder. Or simply I could imagine the extra bar of chocolate I can consume guilt free if I run an extra 5 miles.  Next time it rains and I choose to go for a run, I’ll have to think harder about just what is my motivation.

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