Reduced mood variability is associated with enhanced performance during ultrarunnning

Abstract

Ultrarunning requires extraordinary endurance but the psychological factors involved in successful ultrarunning are not well understood. One widely held view is that fluctuations in mood play a pivotal role in performance during endurance events. However, this view is primarily based on comparisons of mood before and after marathons and shorter running events. Indeed, to date no study has explicitly examined mood changes during a competive ultramarathon. To address this issue, we measured mood fluctuations in athletes competing in the Hardmoors 60, a 100 km, single day continuous trail-ultramarathon, and examined how variation in mood related to performance, as measured by completion time. The key finding was that the variability of athletes Total Mood Disturbance (TMD) score was significantly and positively correlated with completion time, consistent with the idea that mood is an important factor in determining race performance. Athletes also experienced a significant increase in tension immediately prior to race onset. This effect was more pronounced in less experienced athletes and significantly attenuated by measurement stage 1 at 35.4 km, which suggests the effect was driven by the release of pre-competition anxiety. Depression, anger and TMD were significantly lower at the pre-race measurement compared to the baseline measurement taken the week before. Consistent with previous studies, there were also significant increases in fatigue, anger and TMD during the race. The data are interpreted in terms of the Psychobiological model of endurance and may have broader implications for the understanding of endurance performance in other domains.

Mood profiles of amateur triathletes: Implications for mental health and performance

“…Although our participants were recreational rather than elite triathletes, it is likely that pre-competition anxiety and a preoccupation with thoughts associated with competing and/or completing the event, contributed to increased feelings of tension. Our results are also consistent with the findings of Burgum and Smith (2021) who reported a significant increase in Tension scores immediately prior to racing among ultradistance runners.…”

“…These highly variable factors, each with strong potential to substantially disrupt performance, have great capacity to overshadow the effects of pre-event mood upon performance outcomes, perhaps explaining why mood did not associate with performance in this triathlete sample. A recent study of mood fluctuations during ultrarunning ( Burgum and Smith, 2021 ), which reported significant in-event increases in Anger, Fatigue and TMD scores, both confirmed the potential for in-event mood fluctuations to occur and supported the benefit of mood stability on performance among endurance athletes.…”

The Psychological Indicators of Success in Ultrarunning - A Review of the Current Psychological Predictors in Ultrarunning

“…After testing the stress states of nishers in a mountain ultramarathon, it was found that EI had a positive effect on pre-competition and mental preparations [8], concluding that those with higher EI may have more readily adaptable psychological states, which supports a key difference in why some athletes may more effectively adapt and succeed in recovering ultramarathons than others [43]. Because EI correspond with lower TMD, which supports greater performance [9], the greater the EI, the more likely an ultramarathoner is to succeed in their event.…”

“…It is widely believed that mood uctuations in ultrarunning play an important role in performance during an ultramarathon [8, 9,18]. Studies have analyzed mood states in ultrarunning using the Pro le of Mood States (POMS) or the Brunel Mood Scale (BRUMS), nding that between one week and one month of running an ultramarathon, substantial mood alterations took place [6].…”

“…Mood variability in this review is de ned as the frequency of emotional change between seconds to weeks in length. A critical measurement of mood variability is the Total Mood Disturbance (TMD), a score that is positively correlated with completion time in an ultramarathon [8,9]. TMD takes data on anger, confusion, depression, fatigue, tension, and vigor throughout the race using the BRUMS score [45].…”