Distance Running as Play/Work: Training-together as a Joint Accomplishment, in P. Tolmie & M. Rouncefield (eds), Ethnomethodology at Play. London: Ashgate, pp 211-226.

This chapter considers a mundane activity that can be characterized as both hard (physical) work and ‘play’ of a certain kind, in that it can be undertaken as a pleasurable, playful and relaxing leisure activity. For us as ‘veteran’ runners, apart from in the early days of our youthful running biographies, when first introduced to running as a ‘fun’ leisure activity, running constitutes an activity we define as mundane, but ‘serious leisure’ (Stebbins 1993, 2011), immersing us in a culture of commitment in leisure (Tomlinson 1993).

We briefly describe below our running biographies in order to situate the ethnomethodological analysis of our ‘running-together‘ as a crafted co-production, accomplished on a quasi daily basis over many years. Whilst running is therefore defined as a ‘serious‘ activity for us, it also constitutes outdoors ‘play‘ when juxtaposed against the long hours of arduous ‘headwork‘ indoors, as required by our paid jobs as academics.