Hi Daniel - many thanks indeed for taking the time to reply, and I would be delighted to hear of your student's work. 'Distance' in this case is 10K and above, but we are also interested in any running experiences. There's no hurry, but if you or your student has a brief summary to pass on, that would be great. I'm also happy to send you/your student a copy of our phenomenological work on running if of interest.

With thanks and all best wishes, Jacquelyn

Yes indeed, many thanks, Mark; we've found some interesting autobiographical material on marathon and ultra-marathon running. Ethnomethodologies of walking - excellent! You might also have come across Ryave & Schenkein on walking? John Hockey and I have used their work in our own ethno musings... Thanks again for your interest and the pointer to Ulysses. All best wishes.

I think Gary David, Bentley (Boston) is working on something like that. Also, Finola Kerrigan and Gretchen Larsen have looked at running and music - https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/running-with-the-pack-an-analysis-of-music-consumption-with-the-running-community(bac6c9a4-3d07-46ad-aad4-d37ebecdb1c0).html

Ludwig, Stephanie. (2011). The embodied spirituality of women who practice distance running in nature: "I run in the company of trees and of certain friends". ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.

My dear friend and colleague wrote this as her doctoral dissertation. While not strictly phenomenological, she uses a related qualitative method called intuitive inquiry. I hope this helps!

Dear Jennifer - thank you so much for the reference to Stephanie's work, which sounds very interesting indeed. If you have an email address for Stephanie, I would be grateful to make contact with her. Do feel free to use my work email if you wish: [email protected]. Many thanks indeed!

Hi Jacquelyn,

I let Stephanie know, and I passed along your email address--she said she'd email you!

Warmly,

~Jennifer

Hi Jennifer - that's very kind of you; thank you so much - I've just spotted the email from Stephanie in my in-box! All warmest wishes to you, Jaqui

The Reversal Theory literature has several of these phenomenological studies. Kurt Frey wrote one and several others.

Thanks for that recommendation, Jay - much appreciated; I'm not familiar with Reversal Theory.

Many thanks to everyone for all your helpful suggestions!

Mine!

Ageing, The body and Social Change: Running in Later life, a wonderful book published by Palgrave in 2008!

Emmanuelle

Ach, just the ticket! - thank you, Emmanuelle - I've been citing your 2007 paper in 'Sociology', but for some reason the book didn't appear in the searches! Just about to order said book... Merci beaucoup!

I'm not sure if this of any use but a paper by Schomer (1985) Int. J. Sports Psych. had runners verbalise their thoughts during running. If memory serves me right (and it's a long time since I read the paper) they looked at different standard of runner and different intensity of effort.

I am not sure if you are investigating elite or social distance runners, my particular interest is in developing expertise towards elite performance. My response is from this viewpoint.

From the experiential perspective a previous comment recommended long distance runners biographies. This would be a good start for you to understand the types of phenomena you wish to investigate. I would recommend the following from different areas Hugh Symonds (Running High), Charlie Spedding (From Last to First), Frantisek Kozik (Zatopek the marathon victor). These athletes were phenomena’s but from very different perspectives. There is also a book based on a masters thesis by Gabrielle Collinson (British Marathon Runners of the 1980’s) it is a collection of interviews and in comparison to the marathon scene today they were all phenomenal. Particularly interesting are the interviews with the ground breaking women marathon runners. There are many other books about fabulous athletes of the past and I could recommend many others but these should be a good start.

Although many distance runners are self-trained and are generally coached on an informal basis, I would also recommend that you read about the great coaches. Lydiard, Coe, Wilson, Cerutty, Stamfl. These guys were highly influential on there charges.

From the theoretical perspective it is my experience there are a number of drivers. I would start with Ericsson et al. (1995) Deliberate Practice hypothesis. Motivation is an important factor to success within this hypothesis and as such will lead you onto motivational theory that complements your understanding of the phenomena you interpret within the biographies.

The talent identification literature from a psychological perspective may give you more information. MacNamara et al (2010), The role of psychological characteristics in facilitating the pathway to elite performance Part 1 & 2. A balanced view is obtained from Anshel & Lidor (2012), Talent detection programs in sport: The questionable use of psychological measures.

I hope this helps.

Toby

Many thanks for such a detailed response, Toby; much appreciated. We are actually using a sociological-phenomenological theoretical and methodological perspective to investigate non-elite, but serious and long-term, distance (10K upwards, but not ultra distance) running and examining the sensory dimension of distance running, having already published articles in the sociological and sports-sociological literature.

Thank you again for taking the time to reply - and we are indeed self-trained runners ourselves!

All best wishes.

Thanks too, to Philip - just spotted your answer, and sounds an interesting reference.

Thanks everyone for all your helpful comments.

Hi Jacquelyn

Colleagues and I are currently having a paper reviewed on the experiences of ultramaraton runners. We used an existential phenomenological approach, it is not accepted yet but will be happy to discuss findings, methods etc.

Kind regards

Duncan

Hi Duncan

Many thanks for your post, and I would be very interested indeed to read your paper on ultramarathoners when this is published. I won't ask any more at this stage, just in case I am brought on board to review! All very best wishes for your research and for the publication.

Kind regards,

Jacquelyn

In the latest issue of ENVIRONMENTAL & ARCHITECTURAL PHENOMENOLOGY, there is a short article on a "phenomenology of running with a stroller." The publication is open source. Or go to my webpage on academia.edu and you can find this spring issue there. There are some earlier articles in this publication on related topics: e.g., the phenomenology of commuting by bicycle. Or "Why cyclists hate stop signs."

David Seamon

I don't have *Ethnomethodology at Play* here with me so don't know if you already know Greg Smith's work on runners?

eg in *Perspectives on Social Problems* 1997 vol 9, "Incivil attention and everyday intolerance" and in *Symbolic Interaction* 2002 vol 25, "Racing against time?"

all the best Andrew

Hi Andrew

Many thanks for the recommendation, and I do indeed know (and regularly reference) Greg Smith's work on runners, although it is not specifically phenomenological.  I have, however, drawn upon his work when utilising a symbolic interactionist approach to analysing running and co-running.

Glad to hear that Ethnomethodology at Play has found its way to your book collection!

With all best wishes,

Jacquelyn

You may find something of interest in the writings from professor Gunn Engelsrud and her research team, for instance: Standal, Ø.F., Engelsrud, G. (2013). Researching embodiment in movement contexts: a phenomenological approach, Sport, Education and Society, 18:2, 154-166, doi: 10.1080/13573322.2011.608944

Best regards,

Målfrid Råheim

Hi Malfrid

I recently published this article which we used existential phenomenological interviewing (attached). If you email me directly I can send you more relevant articles [email protected]  

Simpson, D.,Post, P., Young, G, & Jensen, P. (2014). “It’s not about taking the easy road”: The experiences of ultramarathon runners. The Sport Psychologist, 28, 176-185. d.o.i: org/10.1123/tsp.2013-0064

This approach has been used with success with other distance running athletes (see Allen-Collinson & Hockey, 2011; & Allen-Collinson, 2012) and longdistance walking (Crust, Keegan, Piggott, & Swann, 2011).

Allen-Collinson, J. (2013). Narratives of and from a runningwomen’s body: Feminist phenomenological perspectives on running embodiment. Leisure Studies Association Newsletter, 95, 41–48.

Allen-Collinson, J. (2012). Feminist phenomenology and the woman in the running body. In L. Martínková & J. Parry (Eds.), Phenomenological Approaches to Sport. London: Routledge.

Crust, L., Keegan, R., Piggott, D., & Swann, C., (2011). Walking the walk: A phenomenological study of long distance walking. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 23 :3, 243–262

Hi Målfrid & Duncan - many thanks to you both for your answers, and for sending on the article (Duncan) and the reference (Målfrid), much appreciated.

Thank you too, Duncan, for citing my and colleagues' work; I'm glad to know that it has been of interest/use to you.  I look forward to reading your article on UM running... sadly, my battered old knees won't stand up to marathon, let alone UM, running these days!  

All very best wishes, Jacquelyn

Hi jacquelyn,

yesterday I came about this article: 

The act of running: a practical epistemology analysis of aesthetic experience in sport

Ninitha Maivorsdotter and Mikael Quennerstedt, Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health. Volume 4, Issue 3, 2012, pages 362- 381

Published online: 28 Sep 2012

DOI: 10.1080/2159676X.2012.693528

Wonderful message thread. Thanks to you all for being so generous with all those sources / references. You have blessed me so much.