Running to best others, or trying to beat yourself?

LITTLE ROCK — What’s your orientation?

For me, the Tough Mudder was just about the participation. In it to win it? More like In it for the minute.

I wasn’t interested in beating Sean Lester or Russ Gunnell. First, they’re better. A lot better. Second, we were a team, and we were going to run the course as a team, weak links and all.

“There’s a lot of people who, their identity is not tied into how they finish,” says Cathy Lirgg, professor in the University of Arkansas’ department of health, human performance and recreation.

On a course like Tough Mudder, though, with obstacles called “Electroshock therapy” and “Fire Walker,” with directions like “Hurl yourself over these enormous hay bales. Watch out for the one with a pitchfork inside,” my cool detachment must be uncharacteristic. Folks who pay $120 want a ride. They’re amped. Equipoise is not their default upon DNS.

“Some people will take it personally if they can’t finish. You see these people that crawl across the line at eight hours. They need to finish. They just have to finish,” Lirgg says.

“Some people would rather pull up with an injury than finish [with a bad time]. They have something to prove.” One of the basic tenets of sports psychology is “goal-orientation” and the pre-eminence of ego/ competition- or task/mastery-motivated sportsmen. Athletes motivated by ego/ competition are primarily interested in their own abilities relative to others; the event serves as a metric for self-worth, the training as a chance to fare better in the metric. The task/mastery-oriented are inclined to weigh their abilities against the challenge itself, not necessarily how others fared.

The two may result in performance parity, but studies suggest the task/ mastery-oriented are more likely to sustain their motivation and focus over the long haul. Ego/competition-oriented performers are prone to burnout.

Similarly, while the two are deeply endemic mechanisms, they’re not mutually exclusive. An elite athlete may prove highly motivated to master the task and beat the competition, a docile person to do neither.

Lirgg says there’s also a separate self-confidence variable, where an athlete may be motivated to prove himself worthy and yet exhibit low self-esteem. “Then you’re stuck.”