Inside The Endurance Athlete's Mind

Much of it is mental. While many endurance athletes say there's nothing special about their physical abilities, clearly people who are drawn to and are able to accomplish feats such as marathons, triathlons and challenging ultra endurance events differ from the rest of us somehow. A big piece of the puzzle is how these athletes think about their lives, goals and the obstacles they face.

"Moderation bores me," says Dean Karnazes, who completed 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 consecutive days and wrote about the experience in the new book, 50/50. He is also currently trying to be the first person ever to complete the world's five major desert foot races in one year. "Once I did a marathon, I thought, 'Huh, I think I can go further than this.' I wanted to explore not only my physical limits but my mental confines."

An accompanying slideshow outlines several characteristic traits of endurance athletes:

• An active interest in seeking their own mental and physical limits.
• An ability to focus on extraordinarily small steps - or micro-goals - while seeking an unusually enormous overall goal.
• The tendency to seek out activities that create discomfort or pain.
• An unflappable commitment to training. "You can't fake your way through an ultra marathon,"
• Tendency to compete against themselves more than anyone else.
• They embrace failure as a chance to learn and grow.
• Tend not to ever "give up", despite challenges.

via Forbes.com