A novel idiographic approach to map subjective experience in endurance sport

This study introduces a novel idiographic approach to mapping the lived experience of endurance athletes by integrating narrative self-reports with Temporal Experience Tracing (TET), a novel method for capturing the temporal dynamics of subjective experience. Two competitive cyclists were followed over eleven consecutive days, providing daily audio narratives and reconstructing their experiences across physiological, cognitive, emotional, and social contextual dimensions. The combined analyses revealed rich interindividual variability in attentional focus, emotional tone, and narrative style, despite comparable training levels and routines. TET trajectories exhibited clear temporal structures linked to session type and context, with competition days marked by peaks in effort, motivation, and flow. Coherence analyses demonstrated strong alignment between narrative descriptions and TET profiles, confirming that subjective dimensions manifest consistently across verbal and graphical modalities. Data driven regression analyses indicated weak correspondence between subjective dynamics, power output and heart rate, suggesting that lived experience might not simply parallel physiological and performance indicators. This methodological synthesis shows that integrating temporal and narrative data provides a multidimensional representation of endurance sport experience, revealing patterns and meanings that conventional metrics obscure. Rather than serving as a predictive tool, TET emerges as a complementary framework for enhancing athlete self-awareness, contextualizing performance fluctuations, and enriching coach athlete communication.