Abstract:

Adventure races are a sport that requires endurance and performance. In adventure races, mental endurance is important in addition to physical performance. The purpose of our research is to study the mental resistance conditions of athletes who participate in adventure races. The universe of the research was formed by adventurous competitors in Turkey, and the sample was made by Aladağlar Sky Trail adventurous race and athletes (75 men, 28 women) who participated in the Kaçkar Ultra Marathon. The data collection tool was developed by Sheard and others (2009) and adapted to Turkish by Altıntaş and Payar Koruç (2016) and used the "Sports Intellectual Resistance Inventory". The Cronbach Alpha internal consistency ratio for the scale was found as .67. Data collected is a statistical package program (SPSS 22). The results are analyzed and interpreted. The analysis of the obtained data used the Independent Samples T test and the one-way variance analysis (One way ANOVA) test in more than two groups. There have been significant differences according to gender, age, number of training, educational status and experience variables. There is no significant difference between the nature of sport. According to this, mental endurance can be said to be important for adventure races. It is believed that the season in which adventure races are held, the length of the trail and the land are influenced by these results. Research results are recommended to be evaluated by coaches to improve athletes' mental resilience.

Abstract:

Adventure racings are sports requaring endurance and performance. In adventure races, in addition to physical performance, mental toughness is also a necessity. The aim of our research is to examine the mental toughness of the athletes participating in adventure racing. The research population is adventure racers in Turkey and the sample is athletes whom participated adventure races of Aladağlar Sky Trail and Kaçkar Ultra Marathon (75 male, 28 female). In this study “Sport Mental Toughness Questionnaire” (Sheard et al., 2009) was used as data collecting tool which was adapted to Turkish by Altınbaş and Bayar Koruç (2016). Cronbach Alpha internal consistency coefficient was founded .67 for the questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed by statistical package program (SPSS 22.0) and the results were interpreted. The t-test and one way ANOVA analysis were used in the evaluation of the research data. Significant differences were reached according to gender, age, number of training, educational status and experience variables. No significant difference was found according to the performed outdoor sport. Accordingly, it can be said that mental toughness is important for adventure racing. It has been thought that the season, the length of the course and the terrain in adventure races are affecting these results. It is recommended that the results of the research be evaluated by the coaches to increase the mental toughness of the athletes.

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