Research on the run: moving methods and the charity ‘thon’

Abstract

This article explores the growing popularity of charity sporting events or ‘thons’ as an emergent fitness practice. To do this, I locate my analysis within a discussion of the emergent trend towards moving methods in sport and physical cultural studies research. Reflecting on some of the methodological challenges and theoretical conundrums that arose from my involvement as a runner-researcher in a qualitative research project that used a GoPro™ camera to capture the experiences of participating in the Mother’s Day Classic; a major fundraising event for breast cancer research and education in Australia, the article engages with broader theoretical and methodological debates as to the application of moving methods in sport and physical cultural studies.

Keywords:

• Charity sporting events
• mobile methods
• embodiment
• ethnography

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Nationally, about 120,000 runners and walkers took part and the event raised more than AUD$25 million.

2. Although the term ‘survivor’ caries mixed connotations – as transformative on the one hand, yet obscuring some of the less positive effects of cancer or the political-economic context in which the fight against the disease is being waged’ (King, 2006, p. 102) – on the other, I use the term here to capture the sense of ‘achievement’ at having beaten the disease.

3. A number of auto-ethnographic accounts similarly attest to fitness as a pre-requisite for fieldwork among endurance sporting communities, including triathlon (McCarville, 2007; Atkinson, 2008; Bridel, 2013), marathon running (Allen-Collinson, 2011) and marathon swimming (Throsby, 2013; 2015).

4. Notions of bodily transformation and the transformative potential of competing in mass participation and endurance events such as triathlons have been noted by Granskog (1993) and Bridel (2013).Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.