Get serious: gender and constraints to long-distance running.

Distance running has experienced a significant increase in popularity in the past 25 years, reflected by a nearly 300% increase in the number of road race finishers since 1990 (Running USA, 2014). Running USA's (2014) annual survey shows that not only are more people finishing, but more people are participating in races more frequently, in greater distances, and with faster times. This growth is an example of an increase in recreation specialization, the exclusive participation in a single form of leisure (Bryan, 1977), which through increased involvement, can become a serious leisure pursuit (Stebbins, 1982; 2001). The challenge associated with these activities allows individuals to become highly and exclusively involved, both in attitudes and behavior (Scott & Shafer, 2001; Stebbins, 2001). As an activity that requires time commitments for training, is challenging in nature, and allows individuals to progress to greater levels of involvement, distance running now fits the definition for many as a specialized, serious form of leisure.This change in popularity for the activity is driven, in part, by the percentage of female participants, which has gone from 25% in 1990 to 57% overall in 2013. This influx of women into the once predominantly male activity is most significantly felt in the half marathon distance (13.1 miles), where women make up 61% of all race finishers (Running USA, 2014). These numbers would suggest that women have carved out a space for themselves within distance running, and the activity has in some ways become gender neutral. However, while the percentage of female runners at every distance up to and including the half marathon has increased continually over the past 10 years, the percentage of women participating in full marathons has plateaued since 2006, with women still representing the minority in this distance at 43% (Running USA, 2014). Ultra running races, which are defined as distance running events longer than 26.2 miles, have an even greater gender disparity, comprised of only 27% female runners (Krouse, Ransdell, Lucas, & Pritchard, 2011). This participation difference in events at 26.2 miles and longer compared to all other distances suggests that something may still be fundamentally different in the serious leisure experience for men and women in distance running.The serious leisure literature has suggested that gender itself can be a constraint to participation in serious leisure activities (Stebbins, 1992). According to Stebbins, gender "acts as a sort of sieve, filtering out males and females from activities culturally defined as appropriate for one sex only" (p. 73). This filtering effect, however, appears to no longer hold as a barrier in the context of distance running, at least in the initial stages of participation. The leisure constraint literature suggests that women may face constraints at every level of leisure participation, and therefore, the framework may be a way to understand the differences in participation that is unique to the full marathon distance. The environmental filter that once precluded women from distance running has appeared to shift, moving the exclusionary barriers, and now seems to apply only to the longest race distances of 26.2 miles and beyond.Constraints to general leisure associated with gender have been well studied. These include a lowered sense of entitlement to leisure for women as they often are the traditional primary caregivers in the household (Maume, 2008), and lack of interpersonal support to pursue more time consuming levels of leisure (Henderson & Allen, 1991). Structural constraints, while often similar to those faced by men, can have antecedents related specifically to being female, including social norms that both prescribe particular forms of leisure for women and suggest a sacrificing leisure in favor of family commitments (Shaw, 1994). In terms of constraint negotiation, the literature has moved away from strict identification of constraints and strategies for overcoming them to an examination of the psychosocial attitudes that can facilitate constraint negotiation (Loucks-Atkinson & Mannell, 2007; Ridinger, Funk, Jordan, & Kaplanidou, 2012; White, 2008). …