ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the unique and richly layered substantive and theoretical contributions an embodied, ethnographic physical cultural studies (PCS) offers to the sociology of pleasurable suffering; especially with respect to the performance of voluntary suffering and physical ordeals in the case of fell running. It examines the complex interrelationship between physical, mental, emotional and social isolation as suffering, common amongst participants within the physical culture. The chapter discusses the trans-contextual nature of suffering in physical cultures, set an agenda for embodied, ethnographic investigations of isolation in physical culture, and describes such pleasurable suffering as one of the cornerstone foci of PCS oeuvre. Contemporary fell running is physically intense and most often structured like a typical road-running race. Fell running is and always has been about personal suffering and pushing one's body into lonely experiences in wilderness contexts. The painful and exhaustive ritual of fell running can remind practitioners how physical and emotional suffering can be a vehicle for self-discovery.
