Although much has been written in the past about running as a social phenomenon and the motivation to run in the psychological dimension, running, mass running events, marathon tourism, and research devoted to it are currently experiencing a renaissance. Research on the motivations of modern runners is important because much research to date has been conducted in a different socio-cultural context. Running motivations have already been analyzed for variables such as gender, nationality, place of residence, or the age of participants of half and full marathons, ultramarathons, or triathlons. Many studies focused on the motivation to run by gender. Researchers usually found differences between male and female motivations (Running, 1995; López-Fernández et al., 2014; Summers et al., 2016; Poczta and Malchrowicz-Mośko, 2018b; Nikolaidis et al., 2019b). Ogles and Masters (2003) presented a typology of marathon runners based on cluster analysis on motivations. Wicker et al. (2012) investigated characteristics of triathlon participants. Nikolaidis et al. studied age-related aspects of marathon participation, while Poczta et al. investigated age-related aspects of half marathon participation (Malchrowicz et al., 2018; Nikolaidis et al., 2019a). Ferrer et al. (2015) claimed that older people are more motivated to run by physical factors than younger ultramarathon participants. Additionally, Saayman et al. found a statistically significant motivational difference in age among triathletes (Myburgh et al., 2014). Knechtle et al. (2013) investigated nationality aspects in motivational structures of ultramarathon runners. Participation motivations of runners have also been assessed according to the type of event, i.e., a traditional versus non-traditional event (Buning and Walker, 2016). Hautbois et al. (2020) investigated the social impact of sporting events and presented a cluster analysis of marathon participants based on perceived benefits. A factor such as place of residence of runners was also examined (e.g., local runners vs. sports tourists) (Shipway and Jones, 2007; Nowak and Chalimoniuk-Nowak, 2015; Besomi et al., 2017; Poczta and Malchrowicz-Mośko, 2018a; Malchrowicz-Mośko, 2019). Researchers who focused on the motivations of runners were also interested in the experience of the athletes as a factor that potentially affected their motivational structure. The aim of the study by Waśkiewicz et al. (2018) was to examine the relationship between motivation characteristics in ultramarathon runners and sports experience expressed as the number of finished ultramarathons. They discovered that ultramarathon runners had different motivations compared to runners of shorter race distances. This was in accordance with a previous study by Doppelmayr and Molkenthin (2004) about finishers in the Marathon des Sables and other runners. Additionally, many years ago, McCutcheon and Yoakum (1983) investigated the personality attributes of ultramarathon runners compared to short distance runners. A comparison among ultramarathon runners, runners of less than 10 miles, and non-runners indicated no difference in personality traits. Hanson et al. (2015) compared half and full marathon runners with ultra-runners and indicated that ultramarathon participants declared less health orientation and fewer weight concerns but a higher life meaning compared to both investigated groups. Malchrowicz-mośko et al. (2020) investigated how years of running experience (less than 1 year, 1–3 years, 3–5 years, and 5–10 years) influence the motivations of amateur marathon athletes, but the results showed that running experience was not a statistically significant factor. Additionally, Stoll et al. (2000) tried to understand how habitual motives change throughout life and Waśkiewicz et al. (2019) compared the motives of successful marathon runners and inexperienced runners. Researchers claimed that successful marathon finishers did not have different motives compared to runners who were intending to compete in their first marathon. There is an increasing number of studies about demanding disciplines such as triathlon (Knechtle et al., 2011). Recent studies indicated the growing interest in extreme sports such as triathlon, which is beginning to be an important research area. Lovett et al. (2018) studied the motivations for participation in triathlon events along with Lamont and Kennelly (2012), Johansen et al. (2021). It should be noted that the Croft et al. (2007), Lovett et al. (2018), and Brown (2019) studies are three known studies on triathletes that used a modified version of the MOMS. However, few studies have been dedicated to motivations of ultramarathon runners. Frick (2011) examined motives of male and female ultramarathon runners, Krouse et al. (2011) evaluated motives of female ultramarathon participants, Malchrowicz-Mośko and Waśkiewicz (2020) and Thuany et al. (2021) analyzed motivation of an ultramarathoner in relation to their family life and marital status or socioeconomic status. They indicated that the most important motivations for running were related to personal goal achievement, health orientation, and self-esteem. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of age on the motivations in various types of runners, namely, marathoners, ultra-marathoners, and non-starters. The number of older athletes is increasing with the aging of populations across the developed world, so it is important to know what motivates older athletes to run and what are the motivational differences compared to young athletes.

The analysis of the results should start with the statement that the population of respondents who responded via the questionnaire is similar to the general population of runners in marathons and ultra-marathons. The gender proportions of research are similar to worldwide standards. Subic (2021) performed a statistical analysis that covered 2,348,505 marathon results achieved during the 2009–2019 period and found that 2,149,719 participants had sex given the following: 1,376,441 (64.03%) were men and 773,278 (35.97%) were women. The author was requested data for the Polish population, and it appeared that 7,974 participants were men (7,637) and 1,885 were women (23.63%). It is a growing tendency because, in the years 2003–2013, the percentage of women was equal to approximately 10% with a single race where women represented 23% of starting population (Stempień, 2014). Another research analyzed the population of ultramarathon runners performed by Ronto (2021) who found that there have never been more women in ultrarunning. Twenty-three percent of participants are female, compared to just 14% 23 years ago. There were 19% of Polish women who participated in ultra-marathons. The data includes the results of 5,010,730 million finishers from over 15,000 races and the study looks at data from 1996 to 2018.

During the last decades, the popularity of mass running events has been described as a “marathon fever” (Summers et al., 1982). Today, we also observe a similar tendency among ultramarathon runners. Many new runners of different ages also want to start the adventure with running. Based on our results, it is possible to compare the most and least important motivations for the youngest and the oldest runners (Table 5).

The number of older athletes is increasing with the aging of populations across the developed world, therefore, it is important to know what motivates older athletes to run (Dionigi, 2006). Contemporary aging adults are not content only with Nordic walking, swimming, or dancing, but they are choosing increasingly demanding disciplines in terms of endurance and technology, such as surfing or participation in a marathon (Wheaton, 2017).

Some of the research results on runner age and motivation are consistent with the few previous studies in this area. According to Ogles and Masters (2000) who investigated only male athletes, older runners were more motivated by a general health orientation and young runners were more motivated by personal goal achievement. Nikolaidis et al. (2019a) also indicated that younger male athletes scored higher for competition aspects. The most important difference that Poczta et al. found in their analysis between younger and older half marathon participants was that younger runners were more focused on sports results while older runners were more often focused on social aspects and contact with other half-marathoners (Malchrowicz et al., 2018). They found that for older respondents who participated in events that were more demanding than a half-marathon, affiliation was not among the dominant factors of participation, but it showed an upward trend depending on the increasing difficulty of the run: from 3.58 among marathoners to 3.71 among ultramarathoners. High results for affiliation in older ultramarathoners is consistent with a qualitative study by Kazimierczak et al. (2020), who highlighted the importance of affiliation and social identity for ultramarathoners. For older respondents, health orientation was especially important. However, health control and educational information before races might be a necessary step to avoid life-threatening complications because studies have shown that runners are often unable to stop despite disturbing symptoms and the desire to finish the run may expose them to life-threatening effects (Khorram-Manesh et al., 2019).

Our work extends the current knowledge about motivation in sport. It shows how age influences the motivations of different types of runners. These research results show that young recreational runners decide to run to achieve a personal goal, and for both marathon and ultramarathon runners, recognition and competition are important. For older people in all groups personal goal achievement is of the least importance, while among the oldest runners, the most important motives were self-esteem for non-starters and health orientation for marathoners and ultramarathoners. The least important motive for all categories of old runners was recognition.

The key strength of this study is the large sample size while limitations involved the use of an online study to obtain the data. However, online studies were reported to obtain very similar results compared to those that are administered manually using paper and pencil (Van De Looij-Jansen and De Wilde, 2008; Hohwü et al., 2013). In the future, more characteristics of runners should be investigated, e.g., marital status as it is a potentially important factor in the field of motivation to run (Lev and Zach, 2018). Age-related motives by gender should also be examined. Lastly, sport is an area in which masculinity and youth along with their achievements are celebrated and rewarded. Thus, aging women face a double barrier when they wish to participate in a competitive sport (Pfister, 2012).

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Jerzy Kukuczka Academy of Physical Education. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

ZW and DG: conceptualization, methodology, and investigation. ZW, AnS, and ArS: software, validation, and data curation. ZW and EM-M: formal analysis and resources. ZW, EM-M, and EB: writing—original draft preparation. EM-M, ZW, AnS, ArS, EB, and DG: writing—review and editing. EM-M: visualization. ZW: supervision and project administration. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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