RESEARCH ARTICLE
Comparison of vitality states of finishers and
withdrawers in trail running: An enactive and
phenomenological perspective
Nadège Rochat1,2,3*, Denis Hauw1, Roberta Antonini Philippe1, Fabienne Crettaz von
Roten1, Ludovic Seifert3
1 Institute of Sport Sciences, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2 Raidlight-Vertical SAS
Outdoor Lab, Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse, France, 3 CETAPS Laboratory—EA 3832, Faculty of Sports
Sciences, University of Rouen, Rouen, France
* nadege.rochat@unil.ch
Abstract
Studies on ultra-endurance suggest that during the races, athletes typically experience
three vitality states (i.e., preservation, loss, and revival) at the phenomenological level. Nev-
ertheless, how these states contribute to the management and outcome of performance
remains unclear. The aim of this study was to determine whether and how the vitality states
experienced by runners and their evolution during a trail race can be used to distinguish
finishers from withdrawers. From an enactive and phenomenological framework, we pro-
cessed enactive interviews and blog posts of race narratives. We distinguished units of
meaning, which were grouped into sequences of experience; each sequence was then cate-
gorized as one of the three vitality states: state of vitality preservation (SVP), state of vitality
loss (SVL) or state of vitality revival (SVR). We analyzed the distribution of these vitality
states and their temporal organization at the beginning, in the second and third quarters,
and at the end of the races, and we qualitatively characterized runners’ adaptations to SVL.
Results showed that finishers completed the race in SVP, with overall significantly more
sequences in SVP and significantly fewer sequences in SVL than withdrawers. SVR did not
discriminate finishers from withdrawers. The temporal organization of the vitality states
showed a significant difference in the emergence of SVP from the second quarter of the
race, as well as a significant difference in the emergence of SVL from the third quarter of the
race. The analysis of adaptations to SVL confirmed that finishers were more capable of exit-
ing SVL by enacting a preservation world when they felt physical or psychological alerts,
whereas withdrawers remained in SVL. Our results showed that finishers and withdrawers
did not enact the same phenomenological worlds in the race situation, especially in the orga-
nization of vitality adaptations and their relationships to difficulties; the cumulative effect of
the succession of experienced vitality states differed, as well.
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0173667
March 10, 2017
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OPEN ACCESS
Citation: Rochat N, Hauw D, Antonini Philippe R,
Crettaz von Roten F, Seifert L (2017) Comparison
of vitality states of finishers and withdrawers in trail
running: An enactive and phenomenological
perspective. PLoS ONE 12(3): e0173667.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173667
Editor: Luca Paolo Ardigò, Universita degli Studi di
Verona, ITALY
Received: May 2, 2016
Accepted: February 26, 2017
Published: March 10, 2017
Copyright: © 2017 Rochat et al. This is an open
access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original
author and source are credited.
Data Availability Statement: Data are available
from the institutional data access of University of
Lausanne (contact corresponding author) for
researchers who meet the criteria for access to
confidential data.
Funding: Grants from ANRT (National association
of research and technology) (http://www.anrt.asso.
fr/fr/espace_cifre/accueil.jsp#.VyTPoXAjFO19)
under the CIFRE agreement (Industrial Convention
of Learning by Research) with the Raidlight
compagny, http://www.raidlight.com/fr/ and
Introduction
Trail running has become a popular sport over the last 40 years, as noted by Hoffman et al. [1],
who observed an increasing number of races per year and more participants per race [2]. Trail
running is no longer practiced by a minority of elite runners, but has also become accessible to
non-professional runners [3] despite the need for high investment and compromise in terms
of training, work schedule and personal life [4]. The races consist of semi-autonomous run-
ning along marked trails in natural environments and impose considerable constraints that
the runners must adapt to, raising effort, logistic and safety issues. The distances vary between
20 kilometers to more than 300 kilometers, with ultra-trail races generally more than 80 kilo-
meters. During these races, runners risk extreme fatigue and/or exhaustion and at times exceed
their personal limits [4]. Ultra-trail racing has therefore been considered an extreme sport or
even a dangerous activity [5].
There are multiple ways to analyze this type of ultra-endurance performance. A current
trend is the “third-person approach” to identify the determinants of performance. In this case,
studies are based on the assumption that performance is dependent on two types of factors: (a)
before-the-race factors, which include, for example, training habits [6], the impact of training
characteristics on running-related injuries [7], and physical, mental and tactical preparation
[4], and (b) during-the-race factors, which include sleep-deprivation effects [8] and neuromus-
cular damage [9]. Other determinants of performance have been examined by isolating specific
characteristics, without distinguishing between these two types of timed factors; these include
mood states [10], cognitive functioning [11], personality traits [12], emotions [13], sarcomere
disruption [14], and alteration of jump height mechanics after a mountain footrace [15]. How-
ever, these approaches partition the unity of runners’ activity into specific processes, which
precludes the possibility of understanding runners from a holistic perspective – that is, as capa-
ble of compensating a performance deficit in one phase of the race by heightened performance
in another phase, or compensating one process by another, such as psychological coping with
physiological problems [16]. Another trend in cognitive science has developed in this direction
and consists of investigating the way people integrate physiological and psychological factors
into a mental unity that emerges at the psycho-phenomenological level [17,18]. From this per-
spective, human activity is (a) Embedded in the whole dynamics of the changing situation
[19], (b) Extended by tools or cultural artifacts (e.g., [20]), (c) Embodied as recurrent sensori-
motor patterns of perception and action [21,22], and (d) Enacted by bringing forth a cognitive
being’s world with specific asymmetrical relationships between the person and his/her envi-
ronment [17,23]. This last element of the four-E approach assumes that the cognitive being’s
world–whatever that being is able to experience, know, or practically handle–is a constitutive
part of human activity that should be investigated in a rigorous phenomenological manner
[21]. Phenomenology benefits from a philosophical background and has shown its practical
applications in research in the cognitive sciences [24]. The objectives of the phenomenological
approach are to analyze experience and describe a phenomenon in terms of how it emerges at the
level of consciousness [25]. This approach thus operates at the interface of conscious and uncon-
scious processes, or at the “fringe of consciousness” [26]. Furthermore, by analyzing experience
in context, phenomenology roots its analysis in the pre-reflectively experienced lived body [27].
At this level of analysis, accounting for how a person feels and acts in a given situation requires a
“first-person approach” (e.g., [24,25]) to identify how experience includes physical events and the
synthesis of sensorial events. The heterogeneity of these events thus emerges at the level of mental
or cognitive unity or the “feeling of what is happening” [21,28,29]. This experience is the sense
(including bodily, emotional, cognitive, action and situational dimensions) that corresponds to
the manner by which people make worlds emerge, in which they have being and act [30].
Enaction of vitality states and performance in trail running
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swissuniversities (NR). We have read and
understood PLOS ONE policies on Financial
Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest and declare the
employment of one author (NR) in Raidlight-
Vertical SAS Outdoorlab Company, Saint-Pierre-de-
Chartreuse, France. The funder provided support in
the form of salaries for the author (NR), but did not
have any additional role in the study design, data
collection and analysis, decision to publish, or
preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of
this author are articulated in the “author
contributions” section.
Competing interests: We have read and
understood PLOS ONE policies on Financial
Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest and declare the
employment of one author (NR) in Raidlight-
Vertical SAS Outdoorlab Company, Saint-Pierre-de-
Chartreuse, France. This commercial affiliation
does not alter our adherence to all PLOS ONE
policies on sharing data and materials.
Therefore, Di Paolo et al. [31] suggested that a cognitive being’s world consists of sense-making
instead of information processing, which is key to the computationalist view. Cognition can thus
be conceived as a form of embodied action in which a person creates meaning by interacting
autonomously with the environment, leading to fluctuations in experience. By rooting the analy-
sis of these fluctuations in the enactive paradigm, which encompasses the dimensions of experi-
ence, meaning and asymmetrical interactions, we argue that it is possible to obtain the temporal
organization of the salient phenomenological states that characterize experience.
A multiplicity of phenomenological states in trail running
Based on the four-E approach, we postulated that trail running in a competitive context would
shape runners’ activity and experience in such a way that we would be able to identify the emer-
gence of typical phenomenological states. Our challenge was to define the nature of these states,
which are singular, context-dependent and peculiar to each runner; therefore, we assumed
there would be many conceivable phenomenological states. However, experiences in trail run-
ning also have many similarities, as shown in a study about the story of withdrawals [32], which
identified the categories that characterized 20 trail runners’ enacted worlds from the start of the
race until the moment they decided to quit it. The findings opened new possibilities for analyz-
ing trail running experience by suggesting that the runners went through various phenomeno-
logical states that could be clearly labeled in categories. In the same vein, qualitative studies of
ultra-endurance runners identified three major states in finishers related to effort management.
The first concerned the stressors that impact their experience (i.e., cramping and injuries, gas-
trointestinal problems, and thoughts about quitting) [16] and characterize a state of suffering.
The second concerned the protective processes aiming at preserving oneself, such as psychologi-
cal coping strategies like setting short-term goals, pace monitoring, hydration and nutrition,
and social support [16]. The third state concerned positive emotions, such as group cohesive-
ness during a part of the race, self-awareness or mental stamina emerging during effort [33],
and positive self-talk [4] to revive vitality during the race.
Interestingly, these states correspond to the findings of other targeted studies in physiology
that had to do with the state of suffering. For example, sleep deprivation was reported to nega-
tively impact runners’ cognitive performances (i.e., decreased psychomotor vigilance, increased
reaction time lapses, inability to stay awake, and sometimes visual hallucinations) [8]. More-
over, long-distance effort was found to lead to emotional disturbances and negative energetic
balances [13]. In contrast, physiological evidence also indicated that runners can prevent this
state by using anticipatory processes that ensure a form of self-preservation: indeed, less neuro-
muscular fatigue, muscle damage and inflammation were reported in a 330-kilometer race than
in shorter races [9]. According to the authors, the runners adopted a protective pacing strategy
during the first half of the race, which reduced muscle damage.
Hence, these studies have all shown that the experience of running a trail race corresponds
to the various dimensions of the runners’ activity [34]. These dimensions document the pro-
cesses involved when runners prepare for a race or confront difficulties in the race, and during
key moments of performance. Moreover, the notion of vitality embeds all these dimensions.
Subjective vitality is “a conscious experience of possessing energy and aliveness” ([35], p.530),
which can also be absent in other contexts. These authors emphasized that vitality is a psycho-
logical experience that depends on a physiological state (e.g., fatigue, illness) and psychological
states. Therefore, based on the evidence that vitality has phenomenological anchorage, we
assume that it (2) embeds physiological and psychological processes that constitute heteroge-
neous information synthesized into mental unity and (2) can fluctuate according to the
context.
Enaction of vitality states and performance in trail running
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There are several ways to analyze vitality, which has been conceived as a global state [35]
and has been used to investigate well-being and mindfulness [36,37] with a validated scale to
measure it [38]. However, although this scale provides information about a subject’s general
well-being in relation to other factors (i.e., friendship, intrinsic values), the temporal fluctua-
tions of vitality still remain unclear. We postulate that trail runners’ experiences and meaning
are timely and structured [39], reflecting an emergent process of experiencing the race situa-
tion. Indeed, as previously emphasized, runners experience phenomenological vitality states,
and analysis of the temporal organization of these states might provide an understanding of
how they emerge. This in turn might provide insight into the runners’ adaptations to the
phenomenological vitality states and thereby explain race outcomes (finish vs. withdraw).
We sought to connect this conception of vitality with the existing literature about trail run-
ning and endurance running and identified three vitality states. The first was a “state of vitality
loss” (i.e., SVL) that runners may experience during a trail race, prompting them to withdraw
because of the constraints typical of this sport [40]. Conversely, runners may also live a “state
of vitality revival” (i.e., SVR) in which they feel good sensations and positive moments. Third,
the protective processes emerging during these races suggest that runners experience a “state
of vitality preservation” (i.e., SVP), which suggests that withdrawers might not be exclusively
those who experience SVL, but also those who cannot preserve themselves sufficiently. They
therefore experience more vitality loss during the race and progressively become unable to fin-
ish [32]. Comparing how these phenomenological vitality states evolve in finishers and with-
drawers may provide insight into the processes that lead to withdrawal from or completion of
the race. By providing a qualitative description of the race outcome, the temporal organization
of SVL, SVP and SVR may be important not only to understand how an immediate state can
impact the following states, but also to further explore how the positive mood states that run-
ners experience during long races are able to re-launch them completely after a period of suf-
fering or vitality loss. We hypothesized that (1) performance outcomes (finish vs. withdraw)
would result from the temporal organization and interactions of these phenomenological
states and (2) the lack of a vitality revival during a race would prompt a runner’s decision to
withdraw.
To summarize, few studies have investigated long-distance running outcomes (finish vs.
withdraw) and the phenomenological vitality states that have been observed during the races,
which include physiological, emotional and cognitive processes. We report here the results of
an investigation of the phenomenological vitality states during multiples races to understand
why runners finish or withdraw from a race. We used an enactive and phenomenological per-
spective to characterize the distribution and temporal organization of these states and runners’
adaptations to them.
Material and methods
Research design
For the analysis of experience, the sport and psychological sciences have mainly used two
approaches to consider its temporal organization [41,42]. Within an enactive framework, the
“course of experience” analyzes experience through the succession of enactments at the level of
what agents are able to perceive, feel, know and do [43,44]. Here, sense-making is studied by
identifying the succession of linkages between action and situation considered at the level of
what is meaningful for an agent, using a semiotic approach to cognition and action inspired by
Peirce (1931–1935) [45–48]. The course of experience reflects the world enacted by genuine
agents in situation through the characterization of elementary units of meaning (EUMs) that
mainly emerge from the association of the agent’s intentional state (i.e., the field of possible
Enaction of vitality states and performance in trail running
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actions he or she can undertake) and situation-related judgments of a proprioceptive, percep-
tive or memory-based nature (i.e., representamens) [43,49]. The course of experience is thus
the chaining of these EUMs during a period of an agent’s activity characterized by emergent or
higher-order structures of meaning, such as sequences (i.e., the succession of EUMs that corre-
sponds to a similar agent’s concern). A key element that distinguishes the course of experience
from the narrative approach is the use of second-person reports coupled with third-person
descriptions, such as video recordings or biomechanical data [47]. Second-person reports are
collected through a process by which traces of past activity are presented to the agent to stimu-
late a re-enactment [50–52]. Here, agents are invited to re-experience and describe the stream
of past experience in relation to these traces by adopting a stance that consists of reliving their
own past experience, although deliberately ignoring the outcome [52]. In doing so, they re-
enact meaningful parts of their past experience. The confrontation with each trace of the peri-
ods and shifts in an agent’s experience is considered as a new situation, although the new
meaningful experience that is built has many similarities with the one that the agent lived in
the past [46,49]. As this approach has been successfully used in studies analyzing performance
outcomes in various sports (e.g., [51,53–55]), we assumed it would be suitable for trail
running.
The second approach, narrative inquiry, has received a great deal of attention in relation to
the report of the stream of activity. Bruner [56], for example, suggested that our personal
knowledge and experience are organized through narratives of sequences of events that corre-
spond to a psycho-phenomenological level. According to Gibbs [22], agents describe those
events that are meaningful for them through narration. The narrative structure provides land-
marks that meaningfully and in timely fashion discretize the stream of the events that form the
structure of a story of a person’s experience [57]. For Bruner [56], Propp [58] and Greimas
[59], the analysis of narratives shows that their structure possesses properties that represent
how the meaning of sequences of events is experienced (e.g., the existence of a plot, obstacles
to overcome, problems to solve, presence of allies, the necessity of having continuity in one’s
identity, the possibility of expressing mood or the search for meaning). Relatedly, researchers
have shown increasing interest in experience-sharing blogs and forums as an innovative tool
for analyzing narratives. Blogs provide a space for personal expression, and Bortree [60]
observed that teenage girls were more likely to express their thoughts and report on their daily
activity by recounting their experiences on their blogs. Blogs are thus suited for gathering
experiential data because these are expression spaces in which people feel comfortable to talk
about their personal experiences [61]. The accounts posted on blogs can thus help us obtain
valuable narratives of the personal experience that has marked runners [62,63], as a participa-
tory sense-making process emerges from the interaction between the teller and the reader
[64]. Sport sciences have also shown great interest in these narratives in the fields of health
(e.g., [65]), physical activity and leisure [66], physical education (e.g., [67]), adapted physical
activity [68] and elite sport (e.g., [69]).
By putting together the course-of-experience and narrative approaches, runners’ reports of
experience have provided insight into the way temporal organization reflects the segmentation
of separate phenomenological states [70–73], including the key shifts in the vitality states dur-
ing a trail running race. These successions of t-time vitality states enacted by the athletes
emerged at the phenomenological level as “perceptual packets” [39,74] forming sequences
(e.g., SVP, SVL, SVR) with unpredictable duration and chaining. They characterized runners’
step-by-step experiences that depicted their singular story of vitality states during a race.
Thus, our research was designed to process two types of data: (a) recorded and transcribed
commentaries elicited by researchers during enactive interviews (EIs) with athletes who were
confronted with traces of their own past activity and asked to rebuild their experience (i.e., EI
Enaction of vitality states and performance in trail running
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data) and (b) freely written accounts of races retrieved from blogs published on the Raidlight
community website (i.e., blog data).
EI data processing
EI participants.
Thirteen French runners (nine males and four females) who participated
in the “Grand Raid de la Re´union” volunteered to participate in the study. All were between 26
and 52 years old. They were recruited (a) through a message posted on the Raidlight community
forum or (b) by responding to a notice before the race. Snowball sampling enabled us to obtain
these participants. The protocol was carried out during a trail running event on Reunion Island,
which comprised three races in which our sample participated, according to the following
repartition (Table 1):
During this event, the race statistics indicated a 48.1% rate of withdrawal. Participants were
between 24 and 74 years old (mean age = 43 years old) [75] and 90% were men and 10% were
women. The six finishers in our sample were ranked between 8th place and 1130th place. There-
fore, the proportion of finishers in our sample matched the race statistics, and the demographic
characteristics suggest that the runners in our sample were representative of the diversity among
the participants.
EI data collection.
EI data were collected using traces of the runners’ past activity. The
traces were two maps of the race: the first provided information about aid stations and geo-
graphic landmarks (depicting the view of the route from above) and the second showed the
elevation changes along the route.
EIs took place shortly after the race, lasted between 60 to 120 minutes, and were recorded.
During the EIs, the runners were confronted with these traces. The interviews were designed
to provoke the re-emergence of elements of past experience when the participant was bodily
face to face with traces of his/her own activity. The runners were asked to show, tell about and
comment on their experience. In doing so, they revealed how they handled it online by build-
ing new meanings (i.e., re-enactment) or activating pre-existing ones (i.e., remembering)
[47,48,53,76]. The researchers took steps to prevent the runners from retrospectively recalling
their experience. First, they asked the runners to avoid judging their activity (i.e., judgment
suspension) and to concentrate on explaining the experience, as suggested for phenomenologi-
cal research [77]. Second, the traces of past activity presented during the EI were aimed at
stimulating the runners to re-enact the stream of their experience in situation while deliber-
ately ignoring the outcome [51]. Third, to ensure that the runners were not retrospectively
recalling their race experience, the researcher took careful note during the interviews that all
runners, whatever their outcome, related positive and/or negative experiences, such as pain,
joy, ease, etc. In addition, if a runner emphasized a positive account during the interview, the
principle of in-depth qualitative research dictated that the researchers looked for a more accu-
rate and authentic report of experience, always in relation to the unfolding situation.
Verbal prompts were used to elicit further information about the meaning of each runner’s
activity, including sense-making from an enactive perspective, this being the actions insepara-
bly coupled with their experience and following their own story of the race: involvements,
Table 1. Repartition of the EI participants (N = 13).
Race name
Length (km)
Positive elevation gain (m)
Finishers (n)
Withdrawers (n)
“Diagonale des Fous”
173
9996
3
5
“The Bourbon Trail”
97
5655
2
2
“The Mascareignes Trail”
65
3922
1
0
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173667.t001
Enaction of vitality states and performance in trail running
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units of meaning (i.e., action) and representamens, as has been done in previous research
using the course-of-experience approach [44,45,47].
The involvement (I) refers to the possibilities that are conceivable by the actor in the situa-
tion; it expresses how he/she enters into activity (e.g. “What were you concerned about at this
moment?”). The unit of meaning (UM) depicts the breaks of the runner’s race story that corre-
spond to the fraction of activity that is meaningful for him/her at each moment (e.g. “What
were you doing?”). The representamen (R) corresponds to what the runner is feeling in rela-
tion to the UM or the feeling of what is happening in the unfolding situation (e.g. “What was
significant for you at this moment?”).
EI data coding. The data treatment was grounded in a phenomenological method that
articulates the inductive and deductive approaches by identifying the descriptions of a phe-
nomenon that can be clustered into discrete categories and then put together to identify the
core and the structure of the experience (see Starks & Brown Trinidad, p. 1373 [77]).
Hence, the phenomenological data were inductively coded into units of meaning, then
deductively classified using first categories of meaning (i.e., involvements, representamens,
and units of meaning), and last classified as one of the three vitality states identified in our lit-
erature review (i.e., SVL, SVP and SVR). This approach has been used in various studies in
sport science, ergonomic and educational research [78–80]. It required a succession of four
data coding steps.
First, the enactive interviews were transcribed verbatim. Second, a general coding system
for describing the settings of activity was established for each runner (Table 2). The system put
together all the information collected in the EI with traces of past activity; this allowed us to
rebuild the story of the race as experienced by each runner.
Example: Extract from an EI
“Researcher: Please comment on your race as you lived it, tell me when there were changes.
You have the race maps to help you.
Runner: The atmosphere was great this year! There were people everywhere, enthusiastic at
the start and this enthusiasm lasted a really long time. The weather was very good, warm, so I
started with a T-shirt; just a T-shirt so it was great, encouraged by the crowd, by people on the
sides of the trails. Then we started, I didn’t want to start too fast, because I was recently
injured, so I started to run at a good pace but I moderated it in order to preserve myself.
Researcher: Did you feel pain?
Runner: A little bit. But. . . It was not. . . Actually I injured my adductors in July. I had
more or less recovered with physiotherapy and I knew that I shouldn’t start too fast to avoid
getting hurt. However, in the meantime, I had sciatica so these last few days, it was painful
and I told myself: the sciatica will pass because often before the start I feel pain everywhere.. .
I’m experienced with that but I started confident anyway, so I’ll see, I’ll go as far as I can and
it’ll be a tough race as usual, so at the first aid station, it was perfect, I drank water, I needed
nothing and I continued in the direction of Berive, many people were outside and it was very
motivating to see people everywhere. I really enjoyed it.”
Table 2. Example of UM coding system from EI data.
Unit of meaning
(UM)
Starts the race in St-Pierre wearing just a
T-shirt
Runs at a good pace but
moderates her speed
Drinks water at the ﬁrst
aid station
Continues to Berive
Involvement (I)
Shouldn’t start too fast and is conﬁdent
Shouldn’t start too fast
-
Motivated
Representamen (R)
Great atmosphere with the crowd at the
start/ sciatica pain
People on the sides encouraging
It’s perfect, no need of
anything
Many people
encouraging
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173667.t002
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Third, these UMs were grouped into sequences that referred to the same story during a part
of the race. Two UMs belong to the sequence “if one is partly determined by the outcome of
the other or if they both refer to the same theme” [81]; their formulation synthesized the con-
tent of the UM (Table 3).
Fourth, each sequence was classified into one of the three types of vitality states identified
in the coding system, according to the following classification (Table 4). To identify the states,
we collected all the sequences and examined their content (i.e., involvements, representamens
and units of meaning). By doing so, we were able to classify them in their corresponding vital-
ity state. For greater clarity, we normalized the formulation of the content of each category suc-
cinctly to portray all the typical dimensions of the trail runners’ experience.
Thus, for each athlete we obtained a succession of the vitality states identified in their course
of experience (Fig 1). As shown in this figure, the same vitality state could be distinguished in
two successive sequences when, for example, the involvement and the representamen changed
focus while the general theme stayed the same. To ensure the validity of the data coding, the
steps of data treatment were carried out independently by three researchers who then com-
pared their respective codings in order to find common agreement.
Blog data processing
Blog data selection.
Thirty-three blog posts on the community website of the Raidlight
brand were selected from among several types of online contents. All were post-race accounts
of experience. We collected 17 blog posts reporting finishing the race and 16 reporting with-
drawal. The data collection complied with the terms and services of the Raidlight website.
Table 3. Example of sequences identified from the UM coding.
Unit of meaning
(UM)
Runs on a unknown trail
segment
Crosses a village
Leaves the village
Keeps on
crossing
villages
Finds a known
path
Arrives at the aid
station
Involvement (I)
Destabilized because he
is on a unknown path
Angry
Tired, bad mood, less
concentration
Angry
Focused on the
race again
Can stick to his plans
again
Representamen
(R)
Feeling of loss of
control, negative
emotion
Technical difﬁculties,
negative emotion
-
It’s hard
Many people are
encouraging
Members of his
support team, feeling
good
Sequences
Runs angry and less concentrated on an unknown trail segment
Runs relaxed, with good sensations on a
known path
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173667.t003
Table 4. Criteria for coding the sequences as phenomenological vitality states.
State of vitality revival (SVR)
State of vitality preservation (SVP)
States of vitality loss (SVL)
Involvement (I)
Lead the race, get ahead of
competitors, motivated to
overcome, gain time or increase
advance
Be careful with the pace, preserve oneself,
energy, keep physical integrity, do not get hurt
Hold on, struggling to go on
Unit of meaning
(UM)
Run/walk fast, accelerate,
decide not to stop at an aid
station, pass other runners
Slow down, do medical procedure, use logistical
supports, force oneself to stay at a perceived
slow pace, deliberately do not pass a competitor,
take breaks, hydrate, eat, sleep
Constrained activity such as slow down, walk
slowly, lose the route
Representamen
(R)
Other runners’ activity, feeling of
having much energy, speed is
higher than expected
Feeling of ease, pleasure
Bad sensations, difﬁculty, pain, tiredness, cold,
negative emotions, bad sleep, hallucinations,
concerns about not being able to ﬁnish the race,
feeling of going slower than expected, people
passing, thoughts about abandoning
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Blog data collection.
In order to make the narrative contents compatible with the course-
of-experience analysis, we searched each of them for the same information on meaning as for
the EI data collection. When the blog data were not suitable for this coding system, they were
deleted from our database (n = 5, 2 finishers and 3 withdrawers). The selection targeted trail
running experience in various races (M = 94.90 km, SD = 39.92) according to the following
repartition (Table 5). In total the data set was composed of 28 blog posts (15 finishers and 13
withdrawers).
Blog data coding.
As we obtained the same type of data as in the EIs, we applied the same
coding procedures. We successively established the general coding system for each blog and
the corresponding vitality states coding system (Table 6).
“At 8 p.m. at St-Pierre, I’m among the first ten runners to enter the start area. I feel stress
and stamina, mixed with the feeling of living something exceptional. I feel a bit nervous
because I arrived by plane yesterday and I’m afraid I lack sleep. Anyway, I’m here with one
single idea: finish. At 11 p.m., I’m literally transported by the stream of 2182 runners behind
me. With D. we’re starting fast as planned. Too fast, sometimes at 14 kilometers per hour in
the first 7 kilometers, and we passed the first checkpoint in 40th place. We start the ascent.
D. slows down and around the 12th kilometer, I start chatting with A., a runner I met in
another race. This makes make realize I should not be here, and even if I feel good, I slow
down.”
Ensuring data validity.
Several measures were taken to ensure the comparability of the
data. First, two investigators, each experienced at conducting qualitative research indepen-
dently, coded the 41 data transcripts according to the criteria for the general and vitality states
coding systems. An agreement rate of 90% was obtained between the two coders. A third cod-
ing session was conducted to reach consensus for the 10% disagreement.
Second, the number of UMs collected with EIs and blogs were compared to statistically
assess whether they were of the same order of size. We hypothesized that a non-significant
Fig 1. Succession of the vitality states in sequences identified from the runners’ courses of experience.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173667.g001
Table 5. Repartition of the blog data participants (N = 28).
Race name
Length (km)
Positive elevation gain (m)
Finishers (n)
Withdrawers (n)
“CCC”
106
6100
8
1
“UTMB”
170
10000
0
3
“Nicolet-Revard”
51
2700
6
0
“TransjuraTrail”
72
3200
1
1
“UTPMA”
105
5600
0
2
“GRP”
80
5090
0
1
“Infernal des Vosges”
160
7300
0
1
“TVS”
110
8375
0
1
“Ecotrail”
50
3681
0
1
“TGV”
73
3800
0
1
“Sainte´lyon”
72
1950
0
1
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Enaction of vitality states and performance in trail running
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difference would reflect a comparable segmentation of the courses of experience. This would
confirm the agreement across reports on the criteria that the runners used to indicate mean-
ingful breakpoints in their experience for a comparable segmentation of narratives. A chi-
square test compared the repartition of the three vitality states (i.e., SVR, SVP, SVL) between
the two datasets (i.e., EI and blog coding) and indicated a non-significant difference (χ2(2) =
0.301, p = 0.860), suggesting that the number of sequences in SVR, SVP and SVL did not sig-
nificantly differ when coding blog and EI data.
In addition, we compared the number of sequences between the two datasets and found no
significant difference (Welch’s test of two independent samples with inequality of variances: t
(16.257) = 1.233, p = 0.235), and we compared the length of the races between the two datasets
and found no significant difference (Welch test: t(14.455) = -1.877, p = 0.081).
Statistical results on the assessment of the comparability of the EI and blog data authorized
us to gather them into a single dataset for the next step of data processing.
Ethics statement
The protocol was approved by the ethics committees of both the University of Rouen and the
University of Lausanne (joint agreement) and followed the guidelines of the Declaration of
Helsinki. Procedures were explained to the participants, who then gave their written informed
consent to participate.
EI and blog data processing
We performed a logistic regression to explain the dichotomous outcome (finish vs. withdraw)
with two independent variables: the number of kilometers of the race and the number of
sequences. The results indicated that the number of kilometers was significant (exp(B) = 1.048,
p = 0.013: when the number of kilometers of the race increased, the chances of finishing it
increased as well) but not the number of sequences (exp(B) = 0.942, p = 0.540). Therefore, we
used percentages instead of counts in the subsequent analyses.
The data were processed in four steps to determine whether the race outcome (finish vs.
withdraw) could be characterized by: (a) the distribution of the vitality states, (b) their tempo-
ral organization, (c) the runners’ immediate adaptation to the experienced state of vitality loss
and (d) the contents of the runners’ adaptations.
Distribution of the vitality states.
The distribution of the vitality states in relation to the
race outcome (i.e., finish vs. withdraw) was determined by comparing the means and standard
deviations of the percentages of each vitality state for finishers and withdrawers. T-tests com-
pared the repartition of SVR, SVP and SVL in finishers and withdrawers; when variances dif-
fered between the groups, we used the Welch test. Normality was tested with the Shapiro-Wilk
test. All tests were performed using the significance level of 5% (p0.05) with SPSS statistical
Table 6. Example of coding system for blog data.
Unit of meaning
(UM)
Enters the start area
Runs the ﬁrst 7
kilometers fast with D
Passes the ﬁrst
checkpoint
Starts the
ascent chatting
with A
Realizes he is
running too fast
Slows down
Involvement (I)
Wants to ﬁnish the race
Planned to start fast
-
-
-
Should slow down in
spite of his good
sensations
Representamen
(R)
Feels stress, nervousness
and fear of lacking sleep
Reaches a speed of
14 kilometers per
hour
Holding the 40th
place
His friend slows
down
Feels good
Feels good
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173667.t006
Enaction of vitality states and performance in trail running
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software. Furthermore, for each course of experience, we quantified the total number of
sequences of experience and their repartition in the vitality states of four periods: the begin-
ning, the second quarter, the third quarter and the end of the race.
Temporal organization of the vitality states. The temporal organization of the vitality
states in relation to the race outcome was determined using measures or cumulative mea-
sures. First, we analyzed the number of SVL and SVP sequences in the four race periods to
detect a difference in pattern between finishers and withdrawers. Moreover, we performed
a logistic regression of eight independent variables (four measures of SVL and SVP), which
were important to predict race outcome via an iterative method (forward, likelihood ratio).
Second, we divided the cumulative number of sequences per category of vitality state by the
cumulated number of sequences in the four race periods as explained above. To do so, we
identified the relative accumulation of each vitality state for each sequence of experience
(Table 7).
Therefore, we calculated the ratio of each vitality state for each sequence: for instance, the
ratio of SVP at the 6th sequence was 4/6 = 0.66. For each vitality state and for each race, we cal-
culated the ratio at the one-third and two-third points and the end of the race.
Thus, each course of experience was split into four periods in which we obtained the per-
centage of the state of vitality experienced for each state in each sequence and the percentage
of each cumulated state each period. T-tests compared the percentages of cumulated states in
the four periods by controlling type I error, i.e., using a p-value of 0.0125 (i.e., 0.05/4) as the
level of significance (Bonferroni approach). As before, we checked the homogeneity of vari-
ances and normality.
Runners’ immediate adaptation to the state of vitality loss.
The runners’ adaptations
after experiencing a state of vitality loss during the race were assessed to determine whether
finishers and withdrawers could be distinguished by their ability to reorganize their activity
when they went through various vitality states. To do so, we calculated the types and frequency
of vitality states at t+1 after a sequence in SVL for finishers and withdrawers. A chi-square test
compared the number of sequences in SVR, SVP or SVL after a sequence of SVL.
Content of the runners’ adaptations.
The analysis of the content of the runners’ adapta-
tions compared the representamens and involvements between finishers and withdrawers in
the sequences in SVL and SVP, based on the following assumptions: (a) the more time runners
spend in SVL, the more probable it is that they will withdraw, (b) the more time runners spend
in SVP, the more probable it is that they will finish, (c) attempts to cope with SVL will help
runners exit from this state of vitality loss, and (d) being able to maintain SVP will help run-
ners to experience less SVL. We clustered these two elements of meaning contrasting finishers
and withdrawers into types using thematic analysis, as suggested by Vaismoradi [82]. Our two-
fold intent was to determine whether during the SVL sequences runners were only in a state of
suffering or were also trying to enact a new experience in response to difficulties, and whether
during SVP sequences they were only running without being aware of this preservation state
or were actively trying to maintain this state.
Table 7. Example of emergence of vitality states for each sequence.
Sequences
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Course of vitality states
SVP
SVP
SVR
SVP
SVL
SVP
SVL
SVL
SVP
SVL
Cumulative number of SVR
0
0
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
Cumulative number of SVP
1
2
2
3
3
4
4
4
5
5
Cumulative number of SVL
0
0
0
0
1
2
3
3
3
4
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173667.t007
Enaction of vitality states and performance in trail running
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Results
Distribution of the vitality states
The repartition of the sequences in each vitality state revealed that finishers had significantly
more sequences in SVP than withdrawers (i.e., 59.5% units of preservation for finishers
whereas withdrawers had 39.8% units of preservation, t(39) = 6.782, p = 0.000). Moreover, fin-
ishers had significantly fewer units of SVL than withdrawers (18.7% for finishers and 42.2%
for withdrawers, t(39) = -7.853, p = 0.000). There was no difference in the units of vitality
revival (SVR) between finishers and withdrawers (t(39) = 1.279, p = 0.208) (Table 8).
Temporal organization of the vitality states
The evolution of sequences in SVP in the four periods of the race for finishers and withdrawers
is represented in Fig 2. Throughout the race, the two groups increasingly diverged, although
both followed a similar pattern of decrease.
For the SVL category (Fig 3), the evolution was also different for finishers and withdrawers,
following a similar pattern of increase for the first three periods, but different trajectories for
the last period.
The cumulated frequency of the states in each period (i.e., beginning, second quarter, third
quarter, end of the race) while controlling type I error (i.e., Bonferroni approach with level of
significance of 0.05/4 = 0.0125) showed the following:
• For SVP: There was no significant difference in the beginning between the two groups
(t(39) = 0.852 and p = 0.400). Then in the second quarter a significant difference was
Table 8. Percentages of the three categories of vitality states in blogs and EIs (N = 41).
SVR
SVP
SVL
Finishers
Withdrawers
Finishers
Withdrawers
Finishers
Withdrawers
M
21.74
17.98
59.51
39.81
18.75
42.21
SD
8.61
10.19
8.20
10.33
8.20
10.80
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173667.t008
Fig 2. Estimated means of sequences in SVP in finishers and withdrawers in the four periods.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173667.g002
Enaction of vitality states and performance in trail running
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observed (t(27.453) = 2.783 and p = 0.011), which remained in the third quarter and the
end of the race (resp. t(39) = 4.756 and p = 0.000, t(39) = 6.782 and p = 0.000).
• For SVL: There was no significant difference in the beginning (t(39) = -0.631 and p = 0.532)
and in the second quarter (t(30.076) = -2.597 and p = 0.014). A significant difference was
observed in the third quarter (t(39) = -5.050 and p = 0.000) and the end of the race (t(39) =
-7.853 and p = 0.000).
A logistic regression assessed the temporal organization of the SVL and SVP states simulta-
neously. The iterative procedure of the method designated the following as the two most
important measures to explain the race outcome: the measure of SVL at the end and the mea-
sure of SVP in the second quarter (Table 9). With these two measures, we could accurately pre-
dict 95.1% of the runners’ outcomes.
A higher number of SVL sequences at the end decreased the likelihood of finishing the race,
whereas a higher number of SVP sequences in the second quarter increased the likelihood of
finishing the race.
Runners’ immediate adaptations to the state of vitality loss
Finishers more often experienced an SVL-SVP transition than withdrawers (66.12% against
40%, Table 10). Withdrawers more often experienced two consecutive sequences of SVL than
finishers (24.76% against 6.45%). Last, 25.8% of SVL-SVR was observed among finishers against
18.09% among withdrawers. The chi-square test showed a significant difference (χ2(2) = 12.21,
Fig 3. Estimated means of sequences in SVL in finishers and withdrawers in the four periods.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173667.g003
Table 9. Results of the logistic regression to explain the race outcome (i.e., finish or withdraw).
A
Wald statistics
p
SVL end
-15.15
6.619
0.010
SVP second quarter
9.52
6.341
0.012
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173667.t009
Enaction of vitality states and performance in trail running
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p = 0.002) in finishers’ and withdrawers’ states at t+1. Note in addition that 90% of withdrawers’
last sequences are in SVL versus 4.76% in finishers.
Content of the runners’ adaptations.
The thematic analysis of the coding showed that
both finishers and withdrawers experienced negative physical sensations such as pain, cold
and cramps at an immediate level, as identified in the representamens during SVL sequences
(Table 11). However, the analysis of involvements showed that finishers attempted to cope
with these difficulties by (a) attempting to get back to a preservation state, as shown earlier by
the type and frequency of vitality states after a sequence of SVL (see Table 10), and (b) directly
and locally reorganizing after an immediate sensation. In contrast, withdrawers (a) more fre-
quently experienced negative physical sensations and (b) had more difficulty getting into a
preservation mode and thus tended to remain in SVL. In the same vein, the finishers’ involve-
ments during SVP appeared more focused not only on this experience but also on concerns
about maintaining it during the race (Table 12).
The two examples depicted in Figs 4 and 5 show that both the finishers and withdrawers
experienced various difficulties expressed in the representamens that impacted their involve-
ments. The finishers’ involvements indicated an overriding concern with preserving oneself in
order to finish the race, specifically by refusing to focus on the performance itself after an expe-
rienced SVL (Fig 4). The withdrawers’ involvements indicated various concerns about vitality
issues and perceptions of being in difficulty and not being able to stay in preservation (Fig 5).
Discussion
The aim of this study was to characterize the distribution and temporal organization of the
vitality states experienced by runners in a trail race and their adaptations to them, in order to
distinguish finishers and withdrawers. Our results showed that the three vitality states emerged
in all of them; however, the temporal organization of these experiences suggests that a situated
vitality adaptation is a central point in determining whether a runner will finish or withdraw.
We must remember that these three vitality states were considered as emerging at the level of
Table 10. Types and frequency of vitality states after a sequence of SVL among finishers and withdrawers.
SVR
SVP
SVL
Finishers
Withdrawers
Finishers
Withdrawers
Finishers
Withdrawers
%
25.8
18.09
66.12
40
6.45
24.76
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173667.t010
Table 11. Types of representamens and involvements in finishers and withdrawers in a state of vitality loss.
Finishers
Withdrawers
Representamens
Involvements
Representamens
Involvements
Gastric pains
Being careful with pace and food
Gastric pains
Hoping it will pass
Muscle cramps and pain
Seeking preservation
Muscle cramps and pain
Trying to hold on, overcoming this state
Fatigue
Having a break
Cold
Trying to warm up
Stress
Trying to relax
Hunger
Should supply
Feeling of difﬁculty
Not focusing on the performance,
just on ﬁnishing
Fatigue
Hoping to get better
Foot pain
Adapting the stride
Foot pain
Adapting the stride
Bad mood
Trying to stay positive
Bad mood, negative emotions
Hoping for a better moment to come or
thoughts of abandoning
Difﬁculties of the environmental
conditions
Trying to cope and hold on
Difﬁculties of the environmental
conditions
Suffering, thinking of withdrawing
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Enaction of vitality states and performance in trail running
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the athletes’ experience in relation to what they enacted during their races. They were mean-
ingful parts of the stream of their sense of what happened when they were in the situations
and, by performing such actions as accelerating, pacing, or sleeping, they enacted these worlds
of feelings, appraisals and thoughts at their pre-reflective level of consciousness [28,29,83].
Having said that, our results clearly showed that finishers and withdrawers did not enact the
same world in the race situation, and our in-depth discussion focuses on three points: (a) fin-
ishing the race in a vitality preservation state, (b) adapting to a vitality loss state, and (c) the
temporal organization of the vitality states.
Finishing the race in a vitality preservation state
Finishers privileged a world that corresponded to vitality preservation, whereas withdrawers
spent less time in preservation and more in a state of vitality loss. These runners thus had to
deal with the problem of not only creating a world of preservation but also maintaining it over
the entire race in order to finish. We were able to observe how the succession of asymmetrical
interactions between runners’ organization and the perturbations emerging from constraints
in the race environment distinguished finishers from withdrawers. Finishers were able to pre-
serve their own organization during a meaningful and significant part of the race [9], while
withdrawers enacted a new organization in relation to these perturbations that protected them
from the troublesome consequences but progressively excluded them from the race.
Table 12. Types of representamens and involvements in finishers and withdrawers in a state of vitality preservation.
Finishers
Withdrawers
Representamens
Involvements
Representamens
Involvements
Impression of running at a slow
pace
In spite of wanting to accelerate, set oneself to slow
down/keep his pace
Concerns about past injuries
Preservation of physical
integrity
Good mood
Enjoy each moment
Too much time spent at the aid
stations
Careful with food and drink,
reserves
Beautiful landscapes
Attempting to ﬁnish the race without getting hurt or too
exhausted
Medical procedures
Getting healed
Feeling relaxed
Looking for recuperation
Time barriers
Following the pace of another
racer
Absence of stress or anxiety
Split the race into smaller stages
People encouraging
Hoping to feel better
Feeling of having a sustainable
pace
Should manage the entire race
Being overtaken, others getting
ahead
Adapting the stride
Carefulness
Anticipate each potential difﬁculty
Difﬁculty to have a regular pace
Avoid getting into physical
difﬁculty
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173667.t012
Fig 4. Example of thematic analysis in a finisher.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173667.g004
Enaction of vitality states and performance in trail running
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Our results thus showed that preservation should be the privileged enacted world as it leads
to finishing, and switches to loss or revival worlds during the race can have negative impacts
on the outcome. Indeed, the finishers might have been able to maintain the enactment of a
preservation vitality state because they were able to block the possibility of switching to one of
these other worlds. Enacting a world of preservation also meant taking into account the poten-
tial risk of overwhelming vitality loss by carefully and continuously monitoring to ensure that
a new but ineffective enactment would not emerge. Previous publications [8,9,13] have docu-
mented the specific management required for long-distance sports, including recovery time,
and sleeping might be one of the performance factors. Hurdiel et al. [8] reported that runners
made compromises between racing and resting by taking short naps, which let them complete
the race in spite of the cognitive deficits that they observed. During a 4,856-kilometer cycling
race, Lahart et al. [13] examined the consequences of sleep deprivation and energy deficiency
on four cyclists’ emotions. They found that the cyclists managed less than one hour of continu-
ous sleep per sleep episode: in addition to short sleep duration, inadequate energy intake led to
unpleasant emotions and difficulty in regulating them. Moreover, the authors showed that
actual sleep and sleep efficiency were better maintained during longer rest periods, highlight-
ing the importance of a race strategy that optimizes the balance between average cycling veloc-
ity and sleep time. They suggested that cyclists should: (a) have a plan prepared in advance to
ensure sufficient sleep and recovery, (b) develop nutritional strategies to maintain energy
intake and thus reduce energy deficits, and (c) anticipate the deleterious effects of sleep depri-
vation to be able to appropriately respond to unexpected stressors [16]. Our results are in line
with these suggestions, which address a broad preservation issue in endurance sports, and
expand on them by showing how finishers enacted a world of preservation that also curbed the
emergence of the revival option. Here, our thematic analysis of runners’ adaptations suggests
that finishers are able to control their propensity to accelerate, even though their immediate
feelings might be good, in contrast to withdrawers. Hence, these findings provide further
insight into the organization of vitality adaptations and underscore the key role of preserva-
tion, a critical factor in finishing ultra-long races. It seems less important to be able to enact a
new world after a difficult period than to be able to maintain a preservation state once it is
enacted.
Last, our results also showed that the differences between finishers and withdrawers in rela-
tion to a preservation strategy are particularly important when the race is shorter. This result
appears counterintuitive at first view if we assume that race difficulty is directly linked to dis-
tance. However, although no causal link between personality factors and ultra-race participa-
tion was found [12], we might interpret this result as indicating that runners in ultra-races are
more skillful and pay more attention to their pace and the supply procedures that are vital for
finishing the race. This assumption of pace management is in line with the results of Lambert
Fig 5. Example of thematic analysis in a withdrawer.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173667.g005
Enaction of vitality states and performance in trail running
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et al. [84], who demonstrated that the faster runners in a 100-kilometer race were able to main-
tain their initial pace for a longer time compared with the slower runners, who showed greater
variation in their pace, which also decreased more rapidly. In contrast, other types of runners,
including beginners, might run shorter races but still fall into the traps that would be avoided
with sufficient self-awareness. Highly self-aware runners are very careful and pay attention to
their physical alerts, fitness and how they are feeling during the run [33]. Interestingly, a study
on nutrient intake showed that most amateur runners did not meet their energy intake and
nutritional requirements during a mountain marathon [85]. Moreover, we can assume that
preservation concerns are stronger when the race is long or known for its difficulty, and the
need for preserving oneself during a short race might be underestimated, especially for inexpe-
rienced or inadequately trained runners, in line with the finding of a study on effort regulation
in rowing between elites and sub-elites [86]. Therefore, runners’ preparation should also be
explored and considered as one of the factors of race completion. For example, Krouse et al.
[6] investigated female ultra-runners’ training practices and found empirical evidence of self-
regulated training practices, such as using their own experience, blogs and websites to com-
plete their training knowledge. Yet, such self-regulated practices might generate incomplete
knowledge about the types of preparation needed for these races.
Adaptation to a vitality loss state
Nevertheless, because withdrawers more frequently enacted longer vitality loss worlds than
those of finishers, it is also possible that they became stuck in this state as they were unable
to enact an exit. From this perspective, the capacity to enact a new world may be a determi-
nant of outcome. Our thematic analysis of runners’ adaptations confirmed this difference
between finishers and withdrawers: Finishers rapidly modified their mode of involvement
when this world emerged, whereas withdrawers appeared to focus on their feelings of dis-
comfort. In short, withdrawers contemplated their difficulties, whereas finishers tried to
find a better world by enacting local adaptions in response to perturbations. Thus, although
both finishers and withdrawers felt vitality loss during the race, as already shown in previ-
ous research on ultra-marathons [10,16], finishers enacted new meanings and put aside
their difficulties by immediately trying to find solutions to change the world of feelings
they were in. Our results therefore also confirm the interpretation that the capacity to
immediately enact a new world when feelings of difficulties appear helps to overcome the
temptation of race withdrawal. This agrees with the findings of a study on the variation in
emotions throughout a multi-stage race regarding the importance of adaptive psychologi-
cal states [87]: put differently, runners should pay attention to and interpret their emo-
tions, using them as a guide for adapting their activity and thereby ensuring the emergence
of a better state for carrying on in the race.
How do withdrawers enact a world of vitality loss? Our results showed that repeated
experiences of states of vitality loss were associated with withdrawal, contrasting with the
repeated experiences of states of vitality preservation observed for finishers. One interpre-
tation is that the more often an individual enacts a type of world, the easier it becomes to
maintain that world, despite any perturbations that may arise. When finishers enacted a
more continuous world of preservation, they ensured and reinforced satisfactory levels of
relative comfort and economical organization compatible with the race duration [9,33]. In
contrast, repeatedly enacting a world of vitality loss reinforced its impact, increased its
degree, and progressively led to a pressing need to stop this world from developing further:
withdrawers then enacted a new world in an attempt to preserve their long-term viability
as ultra-runners.
Enaction of vitality states and performance in trail running
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Temporal organization of the vitality states
Our results revealed that very early on, in about the first quarter of the race, the differences in
the states of preservation and loss between future finishers and withdrawers were significant.
This suggests that the race outcome (i.e., finish or withdraw) began to take shape relatively
early on and was sensitive to the runners’ initial vitality states. Thus, we can argue that these
results can be interpreted as relying on the temporal chain of these states, and particularly on
the cumulative effect of the succession of vitality states. When runners began a race and soon
after experienced a state of vitality loss, this early experience had a more powerful impact on
the following states of vitality loss, which all the runners encountered. Here, a cumulative effect
increased the differences we observed between finishers and withdrawers over the course of
the race. Each successive state of vitality loss was immediately experienced more powerfully,
impacting more negatively on the runners’ overall experience and affecting them more pro-
foundly. In contrast, when finishers, who experienced fewer states of vitality loss, encountered
this type of difficulty, they were still feeling sufficiently well and thus had the psychological
resources to enact a new state. Experienced states of vitality preservation played the same role
but in an opposite direction: the feeling of preservation kept the runners in a state of regular
rhythmicity/pacing, and because they had found a comfortable way to run, the kilometers
seemed to pass easier and the distance to run seemed less daunting. This phenomenon has
already been reported in long-distance walking, during which a cumulative effect of walkers’
positive feelings and emotion increased throughout the duration of the walk [88].
This phenomenon does not rely only on pacing, however, because it is part of a more global
experience of running that is made up of many different feelings (e.g., [4,16]). None of the
withdrawers found a stable state of preservation, but instead moved from one state to another.
This irregularity also explained why they did not find a stable state of relative ease, which
would have helped them to continue the race. Instead, the differences with finishers increased
throughout the race.
Methodological issues and limitations
Some methodological aspects of this study should be underlined. The difference in the number
of sequences resulting from our coding of the data from the blogs and EIs was not significant,
suggesting that we used comparable narratives to document the experience of vitality states.
This result is in accordance with Bargh et al. [62] and Jones & Alony [63], who claimed that
accounts posted on blogs could be used to obtain valuable data on the personal experience that
marked people’s minds. Furthermore, the data extracted from the blogs were considered as
primary data, which by definition are not influenced by the researcher’s intervention. The rela-
tive anonymity of the blog posts (e.g., use of pseudonyms) is thought to facilitate the expres-
sion of what the authors called the “true self” [62]. Therefore, researchers may well be able to
access real lived experience. Of course, for this study, we selected specific blog post narratives
that rendered this type of analysis possible. Indeed, not all the narratives were adapted for this
kind of analysis, because some of them contained inaccurate information, some were humor-
ous narrations, and others were reports about other runners’ activity. A key strength of our
data is that we were able to distinguish the states of vitality revival, preservation and loss that
were then restored in the chronological logic of the trail runners’ experience. We were also
able to document the contents of these vitality states in finishers and withdrawers: thanks to
their courses of experience depicted in their narratives, we were able to understand more
deeply how they continuously organized their activity.
This perspective is not completely new, but it provides a way to link experiences in other
domains of human activity, such as effort, pain, and feelings of ease, in a succession of states,
Enaction of vitality states and performance in trail running
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which is innovative in exploring human activity as it is experienced. This research also suggests
the need for further reflection on Bruner’s question about the purpose of narrative analysis and
whether it should be focused only on specific and singular events in the precise situation in
which they occur or whether there are realities common to all narrations [56]. Indeed, in the
example of the two races (i.e., the “CCC” and the “Nivolet Revard” races) in which several run-
ners participated (Table 3), we sometimes observed common representamens but, although the
runners all had singular experiences, these common representamens did not necessarily have
the same impact on their experience.
This study had some methodological consequences. We were able to validate a method of
data processing that was less time-consuming than EIs by using high-value narratives directly
available on the Internet that portrayed a significant part of trail running experience. Indeed,
social media provide a platform on which the sense of the trail running community is impor-
tant in terms of experience-sharing and race preparation [4].
A study limitation that bears mentioning concerns the qualitative approach: some of our
data were collected during post-race interviews, which inherently raises the issue of retrospec-
tive recall [89]. However, as noted, we took great care to minimize the effects of retrospective
recall by systematically keeping the runners in a re-enactment process. Also, the question of
post-race judgment should be addressed: one might argue that the finishers displayed better
judgment due to their successful completion of the race. However, our methodological design
aimed to reduce this risk because the runners were asked to avoid judgment and to focus on the
stream of situated experience. Furthermore, the direct relationship between race outcome and
positive/negative judgment about the race is in itself debatable; indeed, some of the finishers
were not satisfied with their race performance, whereas some of the withdrawers minimized
negative judgments by stating that the decision to quit was the right one [32]. In addition,
despite the difficult moments, the withdrawers also mentioned very positive moments with
good sensations.
Another limitation has to do with the characterization of the vitality states as discrete. They
were presented as a temporal chain, with clear distinctions between them, as this was a neces-
sary step in constructing valid quantitative and qualitative analyses. However, it is quite likely
that in a real race vitality states are far less clearly delineated, with states emerging and being
experienced more progressively. In this respect, although coding rendered our data clearer, the
discretization was also somewhat artificial to highlight the shifts in the runners’ experience
through the changes in the representamens and involvements identified in the coding. Yet it is
important to note that this procedure is current in research that analyzes the stream of experi-
ence using the Experience Sampling Method (e.g., [90]) or the Day Reconstruction Method
(e.g., [91]). Also, although we did our best to ensure the accuracy of the experience shifts, we
assume that during the race, these changes in the representamens and involvements that the
runners were able to report emerged sufficiently strongly in their experience, reducing the fine
grain analysis of the shifts.
Conclusion
This study showed that the notions of (a) seeking preservation, (b) making a good start, (c)
delaying the emergence of a state of vitality loss, and (d) being able to exit a state of vitality loss
may enrich our understanding of the factors that determine a runner’s ability to finish an
extreme race (generally perceived as the capacity for self-surpassing). The notion of self-sur-
passing might be real when runners remain in a state of vitality loss, especially when they expe-
rience suffering without trying to enact a new world. Last, our results suggested that the main
Enaction of vitality states and performance in trail running
PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0173667
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challenge for runners is to avoid entering into this state: the more they are able to remain in a
state of preservation, the more likely they are to finish.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Mickael Vauthier for his contribution to the collection of EI data.
Author Contributions
Conceptualization: NR DH LS.
Data curation: NR DH LS.
Formal analysis: FCR NR DH.
Funding acquisition: NR DH LS.
Investigation: NR DH LS RAP.
Methodology: NR DH LS.
Project administration: NR DH LS.
Supervision: NR DH LS.
Validation: NR DH LS RAP FCR.
Visualization: NR DH LS.
Writing – original draft: NR DH LS.
Writing – review & editing: NR DH LS.
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Comparison of vitality states of finishers and withdrawers in trail running: An enactive and phenomenological perspective.
Rochat, Nadège,Hauw, Denis,Antonini Philippe, Roberta,Crettaz von Roten, Fabienne,Seifert, Ludovic