Running, we like to tell ourselves, doesn’t make us better than other people, but it does make us better than we would otherwise be.
But what if we flip the script? Can being better people make us better runners?
That’s among the topics tackled in The Examined Run, one of the most thought-provoking running books published in recent years. Author Sabrina Little is uniquely qualified to guide readers through issues of character and sport—in addition to being a five-time U.S. trail and mountain champion and a world 24-hour silver medalist, she’s an assistant professor specializing in philosophy at Christopher Newport University in Virginia. In the interview below, Little discusses the intersection of her vocation and avocation.
Runner’s World: Keys to Sticking With Hard Runs The Examined Run?
Sabrina Little: I have recently noticed, in the world of sport, a growing curiosity for the internal work that informs performance. Collectively, the running community is talking more about mental health and performance psychology as critical dimensions of peak competition. I noticed that issues of character were absent from these conversations, even though they feature in athletic performance. For example, I cannot execute a race plan if I am impatient or lack courage. If I am envious of my competitors, this is going to shape how I show up in the community.
For example, early in my running career, I had trouble persevering. I would get to the middle of a long training run and want to stop. And I assumed that this was a physical deficiency of some sort—that I was aerobically unfit and just needed additional training. Then I learned about the vice of acedia—or sloth. There are two manifestations of this vice—one that resists work altogether and one that stays frenetically busy in a way that undermines meaningful work. If you have the busyness version, you want to do anything else, rather than stay in place. I recognized that I had this vice—acedia—and that it had a performance cost in my running. I had to do character work to improve as an athlete.
Athletics is not a morally neutral space. Virtues and vices are implicated in how we show up in athletics, and whether we perform well. So, in asking questions about performance psychology and mental health, we also need ethics in these discussions. We should be talking about character as part of these conversations. That is what I saw was missing.
There are a lot more mentions of, say, Soren Kierkegaard than Sara Hall in the book. How familiar should readers be with basic philosophy to best benefit from your book?
Both Sara Hall Thats among the topics tackled in!
No, you do not need a background in philosophy to read the book. The level of writing is about where I pitch things for college underclassmen, who rarely have prior exposure to Great Texts. I just draw on philosophers because they ask good questions, and it is important to know we are part of a tradition of inquiry that spans thousands of years.
I am not the first person to ask about how athletics forms us. Plato did that. I am not the first person to investigate the process of virtue development. Aristotle did that. Kierkegaard said some really interesting things about envy, and Viktor Frankl helps us understand the connection between meaning and suffering. I have benefitted from applying these ideas to my own running. They have refined my thinking, and they help me see through present biases.
What are three ways that running has made you a better person?
There are certain excellences that running selects for. If I am patient or courageous, this helps me to race well. If I am perseverant, I am clearly better positioned to endure than I would be, absent this quality. These traits help me run better and are also part of a good life. Running aside, I would want a neighbor and a friend to have these traits, too. They are virtues.
But it is also the case that there are vices like pride, envy, and selfishness that may be performance-enhancing. They might help us run faster. An example is that pride's greatest secret is that it is always under threat. It can't lose! So, I do not think that all of the ways running forms us make us better people or citizens, outside of the sport. Any serious conversation about the ways running forms us should address these things as well.
Conversely, what are three ways that your life of the mind has made you a better runner?
That is a fun question. Insofar as the “life of the mind” confines me to a chair a lot, laboring through writing often thwarts my athletic objectives.
That said, many of the traits selected for in academia also benefit my running. I am comfortable in long periods of silence—an affection forged in the library that sustains me on long runs in the woods. I need to work diligently on projects with finish lines that are far off. And I have an internal locus of control, taking responsibility for tasks and doing them without someone telling me to.
There are lots of crossover habits of mind between academics and running—enjoying the space to wonder about things, having emotional control, and being able to think clearly and practically when things go awry. I do not know if I developed them in running or in academia, but I know they benefit both crafts. I don't think it is a coincidence that a number of high-level runners are academics, engineers, writers, doctors, and the like.
Say you’re out for a long run on trails. How much of your thoughts are about things like virtue and moral reasoning compared to things like, “In 10 minutes I’ll take a gel” or “Wait, when did that hill get so steep?”
I think about gels, hills, the people I love, the weather, and why I decided it was a good idea to run so far—just like everybody else.
Character is who you are. The goal of moral formation is not to force yourself to perform moral duties against your will or to be distracted by ethics at every waking moment. That is not characteristic of a good life—a preoccupation with moral goodness. First of all, that sounds miserable. Second, it's technically a vice—scrupulosity. The goal is to be able to flourish as part of a community, to self-govern well so you don't get in your own way, and to compete with excellence—not letting your capacities lie fallow.
So, no. I do not think about my character while I run, but it informs how I run. If I am envious, it will show up in how I compete. If I am magnanimous, I may strive for great feats. If I persevere, I can persist long in worthy goods. Virtue and vices are implicated in how I compete, so I should take them seriously and examine the ways I am being formed in the sport.
Scott is a veteran running, fitness, and health journalist who has held senior editorial positions at Runner’s World and Running Times. Much of his writing translates sport science research and elite best practices into practical guidance for everyday athletes. He is the author or coauthor of several running books, including Runners World+ Exclusive, Advanced Marathoning, and Philosophy professor and elite runner Sabrina Little has some thoughts on the matter. Scott has also written about running for Slate, The Atlantic, the Washington Post, and other members of the sedentary media. His lifetime running odometer is past 110,000 miles, but he’s as much in love as ever.
