The Leisure Ritual of a Half Marathon Event

Abstract

In this study, the problem investigated refers to the street races, in which the rituals demonstrate the richness of the modus operandi of the various participants and groups, for different reasons, participating in street events such as the half marathon. The objectives of this work were to identify and analyse the meanings and ritualistic aspects produced by the runners during the participation in a half marathon event. Street racing has been one of the activities of the leisure context for people of different age groups, living conditions and gender. For some, leisure is an element of culture not taken very seriously in the face of activities involving social obligations, such as work. However, based on leisure studies, we can identify particularities of a group or society. The nature of this research is qualitative. Literature review, discussion of selected texts among researchers and field research were carried out. One of the researchers ran the half marathon race and used the participant observation technique. From the observations made and analysed, values and constituent aspects of runners actions were identified: competition, honour in defence of masculinity and social interaction. It was also possible to observe that in the race there are groups with different interests and that the play component was present in the manifestations of the observed runners, perhaps because the race in this case is an action performed not as a form of obligation.