Running with a bag: encumbrance, materiality and rhythm

Abstract

Advancing social and cultural geography’s interest in sport, exercise and commuting, as well as the everyday experiences of movement, materiality, and rhythm, this paper provides the first account of run-commuting experiences through a focus on running with a bag. Run-commuting is an emerging active travel practice in which people run to and/or from work. It blurs the usual separation of mobilities related to work and those related to sport, exercise and leisure. In doing so, new body-objects assemblages are introduced into running and commuting practices that have marked impacts on the experiences of mobility. Drawing on interviews and run-alongs with 19 UK run-commuters, this paper explores one such defining experience – running with a bag. Drawing together the concepts of affective materialities and rhythm with work on mobilities and sport, this paper discusses how experiences of running with a bag are marked by disruptive rhythms, managing rhythms and acclimatising to such rhythms. As such, this paper demonstrates the centrality of objects in facilitating and constraining practices, as well shaping the experiences of mobility and exercise. The novel engagement with material and bodily rhythms in this paper also offers fruitful avenues for future mobile, sporting, material and rhythmic thinking in geography.

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