Participants drew upon the support of fellow racersat times. For example, on Leg 4, Tara said she “enjoyedchatting with different people” and “I met up with a guyduring the descent and completed Ambler Loop [a 5kmtraverse] with him.” As we mentioned previously, Tedrealized the need to increase his pace during the finalstages and he “used” social support to help with this task.He said “this gal that I’d hooked up, she and I just startedrunning and kept running and then all of a sudden there’s[the] 120 km [marker], we got 5 km left. So, I mean, that’sjust giving you a boost.” As these examples from Tara andTed reflect, there was a sense of camaraderie with otherrunners. Richard gave a particularly interesting view ofcamaraderie that may be rather unique to the final stagesof a 125 km race when he said, “There were two othersoloists I could see in front of me when we came out ontothe road, I wanted to pass them before the finish and couldhave but decided not to as I thought it would be rude of meconsidering the effort we had all endured.” Hence, thereseemed to be a sense of camaraderie—between runnersand their support crews/friends/families and among therunners themselves—that provided important sources ofsocial support.Post-RaceRejection Versus Acceptance. Perhaps not surprisinglythe nonfinishers’ thoughts and emotions differed to thoseof the finishers. But it was quite striking that, of the threenonfinishers, two (John and Andrew) expressed a senseof dejection. For example, when we video interviewedAndrew seconds after he was disqualified for missingthe Leg 3 cut-off and he said he was “pissed” and felt“crappy.” When we asked him to explain what he wasthinking a little more, he said:I wish I’d, I don’t know, just pushed it a bit harder Iguess. Like 11 minutes [past the cut-off time]. I don’tknow. [Interviewer: “So close, so close”]. Yeah, that’swhat makes it all the worse. I don’t know. I’ve neverbeen cut off of the cut-off time. I feel like it’s worsethan just quitting because of injuries or something.Arrgh. I don’t know. It’s really frustrating.On the other hand, Bryan expressed a sense of acceptancethat he had failed to finish. He said:Even though I didn’t make the cut-off at the end ofLeg 3, [Leg 1] and [Leg 2] actually went probablybetter than the other races I’ve done, other DeathRaces I’ve done. There wasn’t really any particularlow point, it was just an acceptance that when I, whenmy back ceased up…But when my back ceased upand I realized I couldn’t run, it was just, just acceptancethat that’s the way it was.During the focus group Bryan reiterated that he wasable to “accept his fate,” which he put down to the factthat he had previously completed the race on severaloccasions.