Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the rising phenomenon of recreational endurance mobilities and what this tells us about wider societal trends. It discusses how certain aspects of these physical practices are interpreted as an escape from dominant societal trends while others are actually a reification of them.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the rising phenomenon of recreational endurance mobilities and what this tells us about wider societal trends. People with the requisite free time and resources engage in long-distance walking or running as a temporary escape from living in overdrive, in a state of excessive activity (not necessarily physical) and speed. They yearn for a slower pace of life, closely related to nostalgia for an idealised and romanticised slower pre-modern past, with an emphasis on authentic experience (over external rewards) and the sensuous human body. Self-conscious slow mobilities such as walking or running, particularly in (remote) areas of natural beauty, nicely fit the quest for the proper pace related to the 'good life'. Ironically, this temporary escape from dominant societal tendencies is ideologically recuperated in unexpected ways. Within neoliberal frameworks, the potential feelings of agony, hurt and suffering linked to endurance practices signify hard work and the ability to succeed. Learning how not to give up (with the acceptance of pain) and pressing to attain specified goals or aims are seen as helpful for life outside recreational endurance activities, particularly in the context of overwork, burnout and general 'exhaustion'. Mainstream popular culture, arts and (social) media often tend to represent endurance practitioners as model individuals in contemporary society: dedicated, controlled, disciplined, culturally and economically invested in health and self-responsible. In other words, whether they themselves like it or not, endurance athletes are framed as symbolical 'pacemakers', people who set standards of performance and achievement (efficiency and success) for others.