The rewarding effect of flow experience on performance in a marathon race

This research aimed to shed light on the relationship between flow experience and performance in sports using a marathon race as an example. We hypothesized that flow influences the marathon race performance by an indirect rewarding effect. We assumed that the positive quality of flow experience rewards the pre-race running activity and thereby enhances training behavior which again leads to high race performance. A methodological issue of the this was to compare the retrospective with the experience-sampling measure of flow. Three studies with marathon runners (Ns = 109, 112, 65 for Studies 1, 2, and 3, respectively) were conducted. They measured flow experience four times during a marathon race either retrospectively (Studies 1 and 2) or using an experience-sampling method during the race (Study 3). Additionally race performance and future running motivation (Studies 1, 2, and 3), pre-race training behavior (Studies 2 and 3) and flow experience in training (Study 3) were measured. The results confirmed the hypothesis showing that flow during a marathon race is related to future running motivation, but is not directly linked to race performance. Instead, race performance was predicted by pre-race training behavior (Studies 2 and 3) which again was fostered by flow during the training (Study 3). The descriptive flow courses of the retrospective and the experience-sampling flow measures were comparable but also showed important differences. We critically discuss the practical implications of the rewarding effect of flow on performance and the advantages of the retrospective and experience-sampling measure of flow.