ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a theoretical and methodological approach to the study of endurance and the lived distance-running body: sociological phenomenology, which to date has been relatively under-utilized in the sports studies generally. Modern-day phenomenology developed from the philosophical work of Husserl, and provides an umbrella term for a diverse set of theoretical and methodological frameworks. With regard to the sociology-phenomenology nexus, phenomenology was adopted and applied within North American sociology by Schütz whose sociological imagination was particularly captured by the concept of the everyday lifeworld. Distance-running training embraces a combination of aerobic and anaerobic work. The former consists of runs at a relatively steady pace for a specific duration/mileage, and is designed to produce the endurance. The latter is often called 'interval work' and composed of shorter, much more intense 'efforts', which generate the capacity to run at speed.
