Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2024 Mar 27:23:441-474.
doi: 10.17179/excli2024-6907. eCollection 2024.

Personality of marathon runners: a narrative review of recent findings

Lorin Braschler  1 , Mabliny Thuany  2 , Claudio Andre Barbosa de Lira  3 , Volker Scheer  4 , Pantelis T Nikolaidis  5 , Katja Weiss  6 , Beat Knechtle  6   7
Affiliations
Review

Personality of marathon runners: a narrative review of recent findings

Lorin Braschler et al. EXCLI J. .

Abstract

Participation in marathons has dramatically increased over the last few years. Marathon running has many proven beneficial effects, especially on cardiovascular health and fitness. Most research has focused on physiologic and pathophysiologic adaptations in connection with endurance exercise. Nevertheless, marathon running also has a major impact on psychological aspects and positively influences mental health, which has only recently attracted research interest. The present narrative review aimed to review the personality traits of marathon runners with an emphasis on recent literature. Marathon runners show a distinct personality and highly characteristic personality traits needed to successfully finish such a demanding race, i.e., a strong sense of vigor, self-sufficiency, and intelligence as well as low scores in anger, fatigue, tension, and depression. Furthermore, personality differences are detectable between runners of different sexes, ages, and performance level groups. This has significant clinical implications for athletes, coaches and competition organizers, as these groups show different patterns of personality traits. Future studies should focus on changes in cognition and mood states pre-, during, and post-endurance events, as well as during training periods. Large-scale studies comparing personality differences by sex, age, and performance are also important for better clinical guidance. See also the graphical abstract(Fig. 1).

Keywords: marathon; mental health; motivation; personality; psychology; ultra-marathon.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Table 1
Table 1. Summary of the study participants, methods, and key findings of the most important studies regarding psychological profile in endurance athletes
Table 2
Table 2. Summary of the study participants, methods, and key findings of the most important studies regarding sex in endurance athletes
Table 3
Table 3. Summary of the study participants, methods, and key findings of the most important studies regarding age in endurance athletes
Table 4
Table 4. Summary of the study participants, methods, and key findings of the most important studies regarding performance level in endurance athletes
Table 5
Table 5. Overview of the most important aspects regarding personality of marathon runners
Figure 1
Figure 1. Graphical abstract
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Alvero-Cruz JR, Carnero EA, García MAG, Alacid F, Correas-Gómez L, Rosemann T, et al. Predictive Performance models in long-distance runners: a narrative review. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020;17(21):8289. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17218289. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17218289. Available from: - DOI - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Amirkhanyan H, Krawczyk MW, Wilamowski M. Gender inequality and national gender gaps in overconfidence. PLoS One. 2021;16(4):e0249459. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0249459. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0249459. Available from: - DOI - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Baethge C, Goldbeck-Wood S, Mertens S. SANRA-a scale for the quality assessment of narrative review articles. Res Integr Peer Rev. 2019;4:5. doi: 10.1186/s41073-019-0064-8. doi: 10.1186/s41073-019-0064-8. Available from: - DOI - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Brace AW, George K, Lovell GP. Mental toughness and self-efficacy of elite ultra-marathon runners. PLoS One. 2020;15(11):e0241284. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0241284. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0241284. Available from: - DOI - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Brandstätter V, Herrmann M, Schüler J. The struggle of giving up personal goals: affective, physiological, and cognitive consequences of an action crisis. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2013;39:1668–1682. doi: 10.1177/0146167213500151. doi: 10.1177/0146167213500151. Available from: - DOI - DOI - PubMed