In a recent New Yorker article, Adam Alter explores the psychological and spiritual motivations of ultra-marathon runners, that is, people who run distances longer than the conventional marathon (26.2 miles) in races that sometimes last hundreds and even thousands of miles.  Alter, who is associate professor of marketing at the Leonard Stern School of Business, where he also has an affiliated appointment in the psychology department, asks the “obvious question,”  why would someone choose to do this?

But the really interesting question is, why would professor Alter want to know?

After all, the questions we ask reveal a lot about who we are and what we seek.

Continue reading “The Spiritual Life of Long-Distance Runners” →