I measure, therefore I am: digital self-tracking and identity negotiation in Chinese marathon culture

Digital media have become integral to marathon running in China, yet their role in identity negotiation remains underexplored. Drawing on practice theory and media-as-practice, this hybrid ethnography examines how Chinese marathon runners in Hangzhou negotiate identity through digital platforms, wearable devices, and self-tracking. It uses iterative, practice-oriented qualitative analysis informed by ethnographic methodology, comparing participants’ accounts and observed practices across sources to interpret self-tracking in relation to bodily experience and group relationships. Interviews with 77 recreational runners, long-term offline and online observation, and reflexive self-tracking show that identity negotiation unfolds through linked practices of capturing, displaying, feedback, and recalibration. Pace, heart-rate summaries, and route maps gain social meaning when runners share them, familiar audiences interpret them, and these interpretations inform later training or sharing. Over time, repeated recognition of sustained competence and participation can support datafied embodied capital, a field-dependent resource that helps maintain credibility and standing and may lead to roles or opportunities. Digital records make these qualities visible, while co-present running and official results provide corroborating evidence. Time, resources, care responsibilities, and organisational labour shape who remains active and visible. Reconstructing episodes across sources connects these practice chains with longer-term recognition and clarifies digitally mediated identity negotiation in Chinese marathon culture.