Box-ticking has a strange allure. Cyclists are very prone to it, fussing about Eddington numbers, Strava segments, Everesting, LEJOG, the myriad strange things that Audaxing has like RRTY, LEL, PBP ...
I have a friend who's a recreational runner. He churns out 10ks and fun runs, and has done for the 20-odd years that I've known him. He must be in his 70s by now. He'd love to do the London Marathon and enters every year without fail, and never gets a place. There are lots of other marathons available, but he's not interested in them. London is his box that he wants to tick.
Sure we could all take the "smiles not miles" approach, and look at style in mountaineering and so on. But without a box to tick it's not quite the same is it?