“Some People Smoke and Drink, I Run”: Addiction to Running through an Ethnographic Lens

Recreational long-distance runners’ exercising levels often considerably exceed those necessary for keeping healthy. As their running careers unfold, many runners become inspired not so much by fitness and health but other corollaries of running, such as capacity to endure high pain exhaustion or novel bodily experiences. I show in the ethnographic example Estonian runners, a “low-resolution” explanation shift motivations allows it be understood conventional terms addiction. Three symptoms commonly highlighted definitions exercise addiction – tolerance, continuance, withdrawal were particularly salient interviewed runners. However, reasons developing these merely psycho-physiological implications clear-cut which calls more nuanced approach experiences, meanings attributed these, well its relationship with well-being.