Running between the Raindrops: Running Marathons and the Potential to Put Marriage in Jeopardy

For many amateur long-distance runners the marathon is not merely an event – it is a demanding activity, both physically and mentally, that obliges them to enter the running social world and undergo a process of identity transformation. This process encompasses immersion into a `zone` that is often outside the partnership of marriage, and includes absorption into social networks that are unlimited in time and place. An ethnographic research design was utilized, using a combination of participant observation, interviews, and website analysis. The key findings illustrate both the complexity and the fragility regarding the encouragement of the non-running partner towards his/her running partner. It is argued that even if the partner is supportive, embracing a marathon identity might jeopardize the marriage. In other words, partnership may crumble due to the identity transformation of one of the partners when the other doesn’t play an active part in the new social world.