ORIGINAL COMMITMENT AND NEGATIVE ADDICTION TO TRAINING AND COMPETITION FOR MARATHONERS COMPROMISO Y ADICCIÓN NEGATIVA AL ENTRENAMIENTO Y COMPETICIÓN DE LOS MARATONIANOS

Commitment and negative addiction to training and competition are studied through a wide sample of marathoners in Spain. Valuable descriptive data were collected from the sample, leading to the hypothesis that commitment and negative addiction in marathon runners are different concepts, as they are predicted using different sociodemographic variables, training and performance, and also differences in gender. Nevertheless, there is high correlation between the two, leading to the conclusion that marathoners usually acquire negative addiction (not desirable) as a consequence of commitment (healthy and desirable) and of training more times per week in order to escape or forget: in the case of men, to escape from worries about children and work, and in the case of women, worries about children, especially those who are new to running. Finally, some variables which were dealt with as predictors could not be classified within either construct; personal record level, age, number of training companions, BMI and with whom the subject lives. It is advisable to continue to study these constructs from a psychological point of view, the motivations.