Family Life and Marathon Running: Constraint, Cooperation, and Gender in a Leisure Activity

Abstract

This qualitative study examines patterns in the ways families manage a family member's involvement in amateur marathon running. Drawing on in-depth interviews (N = 46), we found that families generally used cooperative and egalitarian strategies to prevent or reduce family-leisure conflict. Research participants discussed how families affected running, how running affected families, how conflicts arose, how they dealt with conflicts, and issues of gender differences. Families both facilitate and constrain participation in this form of leisure, and both men and women manage gender in the context of leisure-family relationships.