Jess Porritt PhD

An exploration of the impact of experience design on the depth and longevity of transformation achieved through participation in ultra-marathons

Supervisors: Ilaria Pappalepore, Andrew Smith, Tom Cohen

Although the production of transformational events and experiences is a core focus of the events industry, the intentional design of transformational experience has received little attention from an academic perspective. What research there is focuses primarily on festival and tourist experiences (Kirillova, Lehto & Cai, 2017; Pung & Gnoth, 2020; Rowan, 2020; Neuhofer et al. 2021; Richardson & Insch, 2023). However serious leisure, extreme and mass-participation sport spaces such as marathons and ultramarathons can also act as transformational eventscapes for their participants (Brymer & Oades, 2009; da Fonseca-Engelhardt et al. 2013). 

The aim of this research is to assess the extent to which the design of endurance running eventscapes impacts the depth and longevity of transformation achieved by ultra-marathon participants. Moreover, this study argues that transformation is not a single disconnected moment but a phenomenon that can hinge entirely on the participant’s worldview, past experiences, and motivation. Thus, the secondary aim is to evaluate how the personal, socio-economic, gendered and cultural context of the participant impacts their interaction with endurance running eventscapes and their potential for transformation. Utilising a mixed-method longitudinal approach, this study proposes to identify key moments of transformation within the participant experience of ultramarathons from training through to post-race recovery as well as highlighting barriers to transformation. Using this data an experience design map will be created that enables the production of supportive and inclusive transformational running events.