Bodies as Arenas of Experimentation: Experiencing Novel Ways of Running

Abstract

Recreational running has been a widely popular form of leisure for half a century, and many countries have experienced a marathon boom in the past decades. In recent years, however, runners have started to run in new ways, often in unconventional settings, and compete in races with various alternative formats. Through an ethnographic approach that builds on in-depth narrative interviews with recreational runners, analysis of runners’ blogs, and participant observation in running events in Estonia, I suggest that as completing a marathon becomes a routine activity, increasingly many dedicated runners turn their bodies into veritable “arenas of experimentation.” Drawing on Zeiler’s concept of bodily “eu-appearance” and Ingold’s concerted approach to movement, perception, and knowledge, and building more generally on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological perspective, I argue that such corporeal experimentation is motivated by novel sensorial experiences that lead to a heightened awareness of one’s own body as well as by a pursuit of altered and intensified perceptual awareness of the environment one runs in.

Earth(l)y pleasures and air-borne bodies: Elemental haptics in women's cross-country running

“…At these times, a state of bodily "dysappearance" prevails, when consciousness shifts from an outward-facing aspect toward the external world, to directedness to the site of bodily pain, discomfort, or suffering. This inward intentionality has also been demonstrated in more positive and pleasurable experiences of "intense embodiment" (Allen-Collinson and Owton, 2015) and "eu-appearance" (Gross, 2021;Zeiler, 2010).…”

“…Distance running, marathon running, trail running, track running, and more “experimental” forms of running have also been investigated via this phenomenological lens (e.g. Allen-Collinson et al, 2019; Bluhm and Ravn, 2021; Gross, 2021; Rochat et al, 2018). Embracing aquatic environments, and employing Merleau-Pontian perspectives, McNarry et al (2020) explore competitive swimming, while Liu (2021), also drawing on Sheets-Johnstone's work, considers waka ama (Māori canoe) paddling.…”

“…As with many social groups, these runners often distinguish themselves by contrasting the specificity of their sporting forms and culture with that of others, for example road runners. As an example of such physical–cultural contrasting, a colleague, returning red-faced and mud-spattered from a lunch-hour run in the sodden, boggy Lancashire countryside, called out to Jacquelyn: “I don't know how road-runners put up with the boredom of it!,” highlighting her celebration of “rough” cross-country ground against the “smooth” and thus “boring” surfaces of road (see also Barnfield (2020), Brown (2017), and Gross, (2021) on surface interactions). Relatedly, as one of Nettleton's (2015: 773) fell runners noted of running on moor and mountain, this often requires us to “work with the land.” We must also “work with” air in our elemental encounters, as we describe below, and as has been so well highlighted in a special issue of the journal Body & Society on breath, breathing, and breath studies (e.g.…”

Feeling good, sensory engagements, and time out: embodied pleasures of running

“…Then, a state of bodily 'dys-appearance' prevails: our intentionality shifts from an outward-facing aspect, interoceptively to the site of corporeal pain or discomfort. This inward-facing intentionality has also been demonstrated in more positive, pleasurable experiences of 'intense embodiment' (Allen-Collinson and Owton 2015) and 'eu-appearance', which Zeiler (2010) describes as a bodily mode of being where the body appears to the subject as something good, easy or well (see also Gross 2021).…”