Embodying the smartwatch: How elite runners mediate data and lived corporeal experience

Given the proliferation of self-quantification technologies in running over the last few years, our research seeks to fill a significant gap by studying the relationship of elite runners with these self-tracking technologies. More specifically, this article explores the technical, corporeal, and relational dimensions of the use of smartwatches by the population of elite athletes in Quebec. Drawing on the theoretical framework of carnal sociology, and based on a qualitative methodology of 18 mobile interviews conducted during runs, our study reveals that the integration of smartwatches is a process that unfolds in two primary, chronological phases. The first phase of “becoming digital” is characterized by an initial importance attributed to data from smartwatches, where numbers take precedence over bodily sensations, relegating the sensory signals of the lived body to the background. The second phase entails a progressive reconnection to the body, marked by a continual interplay between data and sensations. Beyond this individual trajectory, our results also highlight the central role of the socializing framework. The coach and training group act as essential mediators who contextualize, embody, and at times question the data, thereby actively contributing to the co-construction of this lived data. In conclusion, our research shows that the adoption of technology by elite runners is not a purely individual process, but a socially developed skill, in which the body, the self-quantification tool, and the social environment interact to produce a more holistic form of embodied knowledge, refining and complexifying the data/sensations relationship.