Why do amateur athletes love to race?
Professional athletes race to make a living. The sport of triathlon for professionals is brutal. Unless you are in the world top 10 rankings, making a living from race-award money is a tough pursuit. At the professional level, sponsors will provide endorsements of many sorts but the single most important thing to pay the bills is winning. And although there are many races out there that give options to the athletes, the level of competition just seems to get faster every year. At the amateur level, elite athletes usually race with a different motivation. Since amateur races do not provide cash rewards, why so many amateur athletes line every year to the start of hundreds of local, national and world races? One may categorize the amateur athletes in three groups. Athletes within each group have a completely different motivation for racing: 1. The "enthusiastic starter" type of athlete : this is probably the majority of the amateur athletes. They start with great desir...