The motivation to run in a marathon

SuanSunandha Rajabhat University, International College, 1 U-Thong Nok, Dusit, Bangkok, Thailand

^* Corresponding author: nalin.si@ssru.ac.th

Abstract

The trend of marathon running is becoming popular in a modern day. This is, perhaps, because of the tourism policy promoted by the government as well as the behavioral changes toward health concerning among people. The outdoor running event has been organized by many countries around the world. The running events brink a number of touriststo a country and, consequently,increase the revenue. This study, therefore, focus on this interesting topic in order to exploit how runners have been motivated to participate in the marathon event. The researcher applied multistage sampling method to select the respondents. There were three locations selected with 15 runners given an in-depth interview for those locations. The semi-structure interview questions have been used to get information about motivation to run of those respondents. The result showed that there are four main themes of motivation. The first element was mental motivation where the desire to fulfill the mental needs is the key. The second element, physical motivation, referred to how people maintain their physical health condition. This included the exercising level, gaining the energy as well as losing weight. The third motivation was societal motivation. It deals with how the runners perceived social norms. Lastly, environmental motivation accounts how standardized the event is and the quality of service of the organizers. Surprisingly, the result states that the environmental motivation does not have high motivation level to runners. This was, perhaps, the runners tend to focus on their physical motivation rather than the marathon event itself.