Abstract

The purpose of this longitudinal questionnaire study was to investigate the effects of participation or non participation in a marathon race on future running behaviour. The majority (70 per cent) of the participants who intended to run a future marathon actually did so and only 11 per cent stopped running altogether. Fewer of the pre-race dropouts (31 per cent) who indicated their intention to ruin a future marathon actually did so (P<0.001) and more of them (24 per cent) stopped running althogether (P<0.001) compared with the runners in the fininshers sample. These results suggest that the experience of running in a marathon does not negatively influence future running habits. However, failure to run in a race for which an entry has been made may lead to a reduced involvement in running. The present study also examined the reasons for pre-race dropout. Injury (26 per cent), lack of training (31 per cent) and illness (12 per cent) were the most frequently given reasons for drop-out. Few differences were found between the prerace drop-outs and the finishers, but the drop-outs did feel that running was less important (P<0.001), reported a greater number of longer term injuries (P<0.001) and did significantly less training (P<0.001) than the finishers. Verf.-Referat