ABSTRACT
Running is a fundamental human activity and holds an important place in popular culture. In recent decades it has exploded in popularity as a leisure pursuit, with marathons and endurance challenges exerting a strong fascination. Endurance Running is the first collection of original qualitative research to examine distance running through a socio-cultural lens, with a general objective of understanding the concept and meaning of endurance historically and in contemporary times.
Adopting diverse theoretical and methodological approaches to explore topics such as historical conceptualizations of endurance, lived experiences of endurance running, and the meaning of endurance in individual lives, the book reveals how the biological, historical, psychological, and sociological converge to form contextually specific ideas about endurance running and runners.
Endurance Running is an essential book for anybody researching across the entire spectrum of endurance sports and fascinating reading for anybody working in the sociology of sport or the body, cultural studies or behavioural science.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |59 pages
Running beginnings
chapter 2|16 pages
“Astounding exploits” and “laborious undertakings”
chapter 3|15 pages
On the entangled origins of mud running
part |83 pages
Running because
chapter 10|17 pages
Enduring disability, ableism, and whiteness
part |89 pages
Running bodies