The hardy personality refers to a constellation of personality characteristics related to personal perceptions of control, commitment and challenges. This construct has been widely studied in relation to stress and its impact on health and work settings amongst others, but almost ignored in sport contexts. Nonetheless, the characteristics included in this construct are of great interest to playing sports and performance. The main aim of this study is to establish the hardy personality characteristics of a group of adult, Spanish marathon runners. The results obtained, unprecedented until now, have allowed us to establish that the levels of these athletes' perceptions of commitment, control and challenges are moderately high and that they have a notable impact on aspects of both motivation (established goals and expected outcomes) and performance (records achieved). Therefore, adequate training in these characteristics would lead to better performance levels. Furthermore, these athletes show higher levels of hardy personality than young and adult individuals from the general population, which may be a very relevant benefit of playing sport in everyday life
