There are sports where pleasure can be easily experienced, coupled with other intense positive emotions. Rock climbing does it for me (it works with something in our monkey brain and it works very well), some more adrenaline sports get you there too.
But its perfectly fine to not even seek pleasure, that's one way to sustain efforts for long since health benefits especially for white collar workers are massive.
Compared to events like mud race/obstacle course.
That street running event was for people who love to compete the runners and public. Have to say I did not do well in 10km run with time 58 or 59 minutes and vibe all along when I just ran for fun to complete 10k was awful all the way. How big of a looser I am to run so slow.
In a mud races/obstacle courses I am not that bad I can finish in first half of contestants on 5k distance because I have a bit more muscle and functional strength/coordination. Bunch of obstacles for me are fun and not much trouble.
Those obstacle/mud races public and people competing are competing only “can you finish it under x time” where x is reasonable amount for a person to do that.
I’ve finished 200mi rides and loved them. I’ve finished intense 80mi races and loved them. I’ve been on rides with over 15,000ft of climbing in a day. I loved them. I’ve passed 75,000ft of climbing in a week and loved that too!
I’ve never enjoyed a run, but I’m hard-pressed to think of a bike ride I didn’t enjoy. Give it a shot!
Cycling for me is very fulfilling, unlike running.
That said, there's something to be said for using just your own body and very little equipment else.
Some people seem to really enjoy running, and I wouldn't want to deny them that.
I hate running on tread mills even though that's probably also good training, but I don't consider it "real running" because of how mind numbing it is. But I always look forward to a good run in nature no matter the weather or time of year.
My recollection is that during races I would reach a point about two-thirds of the way along, wonder what had got into me to sign up, and tell myself I wouldn't do it again. And then of course I would be back for another race.
However, when I was in condition a run of fifteen or twenty miles could be very enjoyable. These days, a run of five miles can be.
And had the same feelings with game jams. I'd look forward to them, then feel bad while doing them, then look forward to the next one. Which I suppose is better than the normal depression behavior of looking forward to nothing and planning nothing.
1: https://www.rei.com/blog/climb/fun-scale?srsltid=AfmBOoqIBZR...
Which isn't to suggest that it's really about trails as much as it is that there are a lot of different ways to approach it that might work better or worse for other people.
I've never had a marathon I didn't have some amount of misery in. Though I did have one half-marathon that was basically just pure awesomeness: I ran the atlanta half marathon, which I'd planned to race pretty hard, but got injured. So I flew down there, met up with my friend, and we decided to just run it as a training run. Heck - I went to the port-a-potty as the starting gun fired, since the lines were too long. Started in the back, spent the entire race passing people, and decided in the last 3 miles I felt good enough to go fast and dropped down to something close to race pace for them and enjoyed the hell out of it. Didn't come anywhere near a PR, of course, but it was a memorably fun run -- good company, nice scenery, good slow warmup, and no pressure at all on myself. And kinda good for my ego since we spent literally the entire time flying past people who looked not very happy to be there. :-)
I've often have pure pleasure while running through nature if you count that. I've done a few long distance trail events over the years, and it seems rather good for my mental health.
I've only done the pure joy of running thing, the so called runners high, once or twice. That was while doing fast⁰ road¹ running before I discovered the joy of a slower long plod in the green stuff, and it literally feels like being a little drugged up. The physical joy of exercise usually comes from neuroactive chemicals that the brain kicks out as natural painkillers², when you finish these take a while to filter out of your system but no longer have effect of hard work to counteract, so you feel really good in that cool-down period. Sometimes though their levels end up a little higher than they need to be for your current efforts while still running, when that happens it feels like you are running on clouds and that you could keep going for days, if you notice that happening you can sometimes draw it out by careful management of your level of effort (but obviously your judgement in that regard is a bit off at the time so that is easier said than done).
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[0] well, fast-sh, I've never been an example of peak human fitness!
[1] or at least payment, or the cycle tracks that were a large part of my regular training runs
[2] a useful part of the flight/fight reaction when being hunted, which as persistence hunters we evolved to co-opt when on the other side of that great survival game
I've never felt a "commitment to winning at all costs". I'm as much in awe of the winners of marathons as anybody sitting on a couch. They are literally running a completely different race from me. I never even see them.
I run marathons because I think the training is good for my body and my brain. The actual race is just a way to set a goal. I'd actually be healthier if I ran half-marathons instead, but having a very longstanding habit of running marathons. I have an irrational fear that I'll miss some signal of decline.
Eventually I'll get over that fear. But not this year.