#distance-running — Public Fediverse posts

The power of the signifier: why the power up sign is actually doing something real

After weeks of niggling injuries I returned to distance running this morning for the first time in a couple of months. I’d been widely assured that despite my catastrophising it really wasn’t possible to have lost much fitness and strength in eight weeks. Yet in practice it was newly exhausting to run a distance I could have done pretty casually back in May. It left me pining for something I saw a lot at the last competitive race I did:

I really like these signs. Once I got over feeling silly about doing it, I found that tapping the power up does indeed make me feel powered up. What’s going on here? If you accept my experience that this is, at least mildly, energising then the obvious explanation is that it’s energising because it’s fun. But what does it mean for it to be fun? It’s fun because the signifier itself carries traces of past fun. For anyone who spent years playing Mario Kart the idea of a mushroom that you tap to go faster resonates with diffuse memories of hours playing a fun game, individually and in groups. The sense of acceleration in the game, particularly when you’re falling behind and a judiciously timed mushroom leaves you rushing back ahead, translates into the context of the race.

A sceptical voice in me points out that I actually start accelerating before I tap the mushroom. Part of the fun is rushing to tap the power up, before rushing forward newly powered up. But this in itself is a response to the signifier. It carries the capacity to induce a response which is in a real sense causal. It makes me think of Mari Ruti’s description in The Creative Self of “tiny morsels of jouissance latching themselves onto the underbellies of select signifiers so as to give them the kind of boost that enables them to resuscitate the domain of signification” (loc 1225). Each of those countless games of Mario Kart is a little barnacle attached to the underbelly of the mushroom on the sign, perfectly attuned to the libidinal economy of the race itself. It’s good to get a power up in a half marathon for pretty similar reasons to it being good to get a power up in a game of Mario Kart. The fact it’s offer in a spirit of support, such that solidarity is expressed through making and sharing the sign, amplifies this but I don’t think it creates it. I can’t think of another sign at a race that has had this effect. Occasionally good jokes make you laugh, which can in turn cheer you up if you’re feeling exhausted and miserable. But that’s more a situational response to occasional feelings of “why am I doing this to myself?” rather than something which directly acts on you in a libidinal sense.

I find the idea that the signifier itself as a causal power, albeit dependent on the individual’s past history of engagement with that signifier, vastly more plausible than a sceptical reading which suggests that at best this just people responding emotionally to a supportive crowd. Without engaging with the signifiers through which that support intervenes in the race, these are just general platitudes rather than specific claims about identifiable effects which forms of support have on particular runners. I find it interesting to think this through in relation to the mushroom sign because transposing a signifier from a racing game to a running race makes it easier to see the causal forces at work. It leaves the prior influences more easily legible than they would otherwise be. But one of the things I’ve learned from Lacan is that signifiers are working on us constantly, in often profound and idiosyncratic ways, in a manner which much sociology (particularly the school I was trained in for all its other virtues) is pretty incurious about and unresponsive to.

The power of the signifier: why the power up sign is actually doing something real

After weeks of niggling injuries I returned to distance running this morning for the first time in a couple of months. I’d been widely assured that despite my catastrophising it really wasn’t possible to have lost much fitness and strength in eight weeks. Yet in practice it was newly exhausting to run a distance I could have done pretty casually back in May. It left me pining for something I saw a lot at the last competitive race I did:

I really like these signs. Once I got over feeling silly about doing it, I found that tapping the power up does indeed make me feel powered up. What’s going on here? If you accept my experience that this is, at least mildly, energising then the obvious explanation is that it’s energising because it’s fun. But what does it mean for it to be fun? It’s fun in part because the signifier itself carries traces of past fun. For anyone who spent years playing Mario Kart the idea of a mushroom that you tap to go faster resonates with diffuse memories of hours playing a fun game, individually and in groups. The sense of acceleration in the game, particularly when you’re falling behind and a judiciously timed mushroom leaves you rushing back ahead, translates into the context of the race. A sceptical voice in me points out that I actually start accelerating before I tap the mushroom. Part of the fun is rushing to tap the power up, before rushing forward newly powered up. But this in itself is a response to the signifier. It carries the capacity to induce a response which is in a real sense causal even if that capacity can only accumulate through iterated engagements with the signifier over time. It’s not a nostalgic phenomenon because it’s very much present tense. The past fun is in a sense present now even if it’s force relies entirely on the past engagements.

It makes me think of Mari Ruti’s description in The Creative Self of “tiny morsels of jouissance latching themselves onto the underbellies of select signifiers so as to give them the kind of boost that enables them to resuscitate the domain of signification” (loc 1225). Each of those countless games of Mario Kart is a little barnacle attached to the underbelly of the mushroom on the sign, perfectly attuned to the libidinal economy of the race itself. It’s good to get a power up in a half marathon for pretty similar reasons to it being good to get a power up in a game of Mario Kart. The fact it’s offered in a spirit of support, such that solidarity is expressed through making and sharing the sign, amplifies this but I don’t think it creates it. I can’t think of another sign at a race that has had this effect. Occasionally good jokes make me laugh, which can in turn cheer me up if I’m feeling exhausted and miserable. But that’s more a situational response to occasional wonderings of “why am I doing this to myself?” rather than something which directly acts on me in a libidinal sense.

I find the idea that the signifier itself as a causal power, albeit dependent on the individual’s past history of engagement with that signifier, vastly more plausible than a sceptical reading which suggests that at best this is just people responding emotionally to a supportive crowd. Without engaging with the signifiers through which that support intervenes in the race, these are just general platitudes rather than specific claims about identifiable effects which forms of support have on particular runners. I find it interesting to think this through in relation to the mushroom sign because transposing a signifier from a racing game to a running race makes it easier to see the causal forces at work. It leaves the prior influences more easily legible than they would otherwise be. But one of the things I’ve learned from Lacan is that signifiers are working on us constantly, in often profound and idiosyncratic ways, in a manner which much sociology (particularly the school I was trained in for all its other virtues) is pretty incurious about and unresponsive to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plAr3adKbyc

🏃‍♀️ "Everyone wants a perfect ending." If Addy Ritzenhein isn't the No. 1 girls prep distance runner in Colorado history, then her closing kick 🥇 at CHSAA state track made one heck of a case. @DenverPost column: 👇

https://www.denverpost.com/2026/05/16/colorado-state-track-niwot-4a-record-ritzenhein/

#Olympics #trackandfield #track #Olympicgames #SummerOlympics #track #field #distancerunning #running #NAU #Arizona #NorthernArizona #RaiseTheFlag #Colorado #copreps @NiwotHS @Niwotathletics #Denver #Boulder #London #sports #news

Distance running and finishing books

I’ve spent the last year fixated on how similar writing books is to distance running. If you treat the task as a singular thing, it can be overwhelming, whereas if you chunk it up into manageable units it becomes entirely doable. If you go by chapter-by-chapter there comes a point at which you suddenly realise you’re almost done. If you break up a race into particular phases (which increasingly for me are defined by when I take the energy gels) something huge starts to feel entirely manageable. The sense of what you can do expands through this dynamic as you get more practiced at doing it. If you just keep showing up consistently, it’s almost magical how something happens which you once wouldn’t have been able to imagine.

Now that I’m finishing my latest book while also getting close to marathon distance, I realise there’s a difference as well. There’s often a feeling of elation I get towards the end of a long run, particularly for a race. A sense of being entirely in flow, lost in a rhythm that entirely decenters the continual stream of stuff that litters my internal conversation. There’s a joy to getting lost in the process, surrendering to it. I’m reliably forcing myself to stop because I need my dodgy ankle to get used to the distance, rather than because I want to stop. I’ve only once come close to the point where I had to stop and that was a competitive half marathon in torrential rain, when I’d fucked up by going too quickly in the first few miles on a course that was far too hilly for my tastes. Otherwise I don’t want to stop.

Whereas with the end of a book I want so much to stop. I want it to be over. The pleasure of the process has long since passed. I’m being forced to do it. I know that if I don’t do it the thing I’ve spent so long on will never be read by the people I want to read it. But it’s a slog. Not in the life affirming sense of the half marathon in the rain (I’ve rarely felt more physically uncomfortable nor more viscerally alive than I did when the picture below was taken) but in the “CAN I NOT JUST STOP NOW PLEASE?” sense. This post is a desperate plea to myself to keep going because I’m actually about 4 hours of work away from finishing this ✊

Distance running and finishing books

I’ve spent the last year fixated on how similar writing books is to distance running. If you treat the task as a singular thing, it can be overwhelming, whereas if you chunk it up into manageable units it becomes entirely doable. If you go by chapter-by-chapter there comes a point at which you suddenly realise you’re almost done. If you break up a race into particular phases (which increasingly for me are defined by when I take the energy gels) something huge starts to feel entirely manageable. The sense of what you can do expands through this dynamic as you get more practiced at doing it. If you just keep showing up consistently, it’s almost magical how something happens which you once wouldn’t have been able to imagine.

Now that I’m finishing my latest book while also getting close to marathon distance, I realise there’s a difference as well. There’s often a feeling of elation I get towards the end of a long run, particularly for a race. A sense of being entirely in flow, lost in a rhythm that entirely decenters the continual stream of stuff that litters my internal conversation. There’s a joy to getting lost in the process, surrendering to it. I’m reliably forcing myself to stop because I need my dodgy ankle to get used to the distance, rather than because I want to stop. I’ve only once come close to the point where I had to stop and that was a competitive half marathon in torrential rain, when I’d fucked up by going too quickly in the first few miles on a course that was far too hilly for my tastes. Otherwise I don’t want to stop.

Whereas with the end of a book I want so much to stop. I want it to be over. The pleasure of the process has long since passed. I’m being forced to do it. I know that if I don’t do it the thing I’ve spent so long on will never be read by the people I want to read it. But it’s a slog. Not in the life affirming sense of the half marathon in the rain (I’ve rarely felt more physically uncomfortable nor more viscerally alive than I did when the picture below was taken) but in the “CAN I NOT JUST STOP NOW PLEASE?” sense. This post is a desperate plea to myself to keep going because I’m actually about 4 hours of work away from finishing this ✊

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fXWH9ToFwk

Jenny Hoffman has set a new record for running across the United States in 47.5 days, besting the old record by a week: https://www.npr.org/2023/11/10/1212383938/running-marathon-record-jenny-hoffman

#running #distancerunning #ultramarathon #ultramarathoning #npr #us #usa #unitedstates #unitedstatesofamerica #meganlim #jennyhoffman

Jenny Hoffman has set a new record for running across the United States in 47.5 days, besting the old record by a week: https://www.npr.org/2023/11/10/1212383938/running-marathon-record-jenny-hoffman

#running #distancerunning #ultramarathon #ultramarathoning #npr #us #usa #unitedstates #unitedstatesofamerica #meganlim #jennyhoffman

Where are the #TrackAndField folks at on the fediverse?

Looking for that sweet USAs content. Help me find the hashtags and accounts to follow!

#running #throwing #track #DistanceRunning #hurdles #sprinting

Where are the #TrackAndField folks at on the fediverse?

Looking for that sweet USAs content. Help me find the hashtags and accounts to follow!

#running #throwing #track #DistanceRunning #hurdles #sprinting

I’m trying to shed a drinking problem and have found that I can quiet the demons with #weightlifting or #running for distance. Or maybe food that’s terrible for you with excessive caffeine, but that sometimes contributes to the drinking problem.

So far #weightlifting and #distancerunning with very loud music have been the best ways to shut them up without hurting me that much.

The pizza is a Friday night by myself thing, though. Maybe I’ll get a takeout #gyro next week.

Today I did tempo intervals for the first time in...7 (maybe 8) years and wow, I'd forgotten how fun they could be. Perhaps my second favorite type of workout. 🏃‍♂️ #DistanceRunning

Today I did tempo intervals for the first time in...7 (maybe 8) years and wow, I'd forgotten how fun they could be. Perhaps my second favorite type of workout. 🏃‍♂️ #DistanceRunning

“A lot of #AfricanAmerican distance runners had not thought about pursuing different #running goals until they saw another African American was pursuing that goal or had completed it”
“The more you know about the accomplishments of other people, the smaller your ego becomes. And that’s the thing I love about the #sport”

Tony Reed Is Committed to Alleviating the Loneliness of the Black Long-Distance Runner https://www.runnersworld.com/runners-stories/a36280661/tony-reed-is-committed-to-diversifying-running/ #marathon #distancerunning #crosscountry #endurance #inclusion

Mid-Holidays Running Report: At 67°, today it is 75° warmer than our low of -8° just a week ago. I'm not complaining, but this cannot be normal. Here I am at the Tonganoxie High School track enjoying the sun and warmth and thankful to not have snow blowing in my face and a -18° wind chill. Total distance: 4.06 miles, 72 heart health points, and 6,880 steps.
#running #distancerunning #weather #Kansas #KansasCityWX

Mid-Holidays Running Report: At 67°, today it is 75° warmer than our low of -8° just a week ago. I'm not complaining, but this cannot be normal. Here I am at the Tonganoxie High School track enjoying the sun and warmth and thankful to not have snow blowing in my face and a -18° wind chill. Total distance: 4.06 miles, 72 heart health points, and 6,880 steps.
#running #distancerunning #weather #Kansas #KansasCityWX