Abstract
Adventure racings are sports requaring endurance and performance. In adventure races, in addition to physical performance, mental toughness is also a necessity. The aim of our research is to examine the mental toughness of the athletes participating in adventure racing. The research population is adventure racers in Turkey and the sample is athletes whom participated adventure races of Aladağlar Sky Trail and Kaçkar Ultra Marathon (75 male, 28 female). In this study “Sport Mental Toughness Questionnaire” (Sheard et al., 2009) was used as data collecting tool which was adapted to Turkish by Altınbaş and Bayar Koruç (2016). Cronbach Alpha internal consistency coefficient was founded .67 for the questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed by statistical package program (SPSS 22.0) and the results were interpreted. The t-test and one way ANOVA analysis were used in the evaluation of the research data. Significant differences were reached according to gender, age, number of training, educational status and experience variables. No significant difference was found according to the performed outdoor sport. Accordingly, it can be said that mental toughness is important for adventure racing. It has been thought that the season, the length of the course and the terrain in adventure races are affecting these results. It is recommended that the results of the research be evaluated by the coaches to increase the mental toughness of the athletes.