A few days ago, I was searching for a folder on my computer. In the process, I came across a document labeled “Summer of Chair,” which made me laugh. It was a paragraph I wrote early last summer, when I was stricken by hardship — an injury that was all my fault.
When I wrote the paragraph, I was mad that, instead of racing that morning, I was injured. I was being dramatic. I was sitting in my chair, wondering whether I would spend the whole summer like that — removed from competition, unable to compete.
As it turned out, the setback was minor. It was a short interruption from training. By next summer, I will probably forget that it happened at all. But, considering the statistics — that somewhere between 30 and 75 percent of runners become injured annually (1) — maybe by next summer, I will be dealing with another setback.
Sabrina Little on a better running day, at the Yorktown Battlefields five-mile race on July 4, 2023. All photos courtesy of Sabrina Little
Virtues of Despair Resistance
Running is full of difficulties. Some of them are the consequences of our own imprudence — running too hard, too fast, or too long, beyond what our bodies can support. Some of them follow from the structure of the sport — the fact that we are enduring, which is arduous by design.
Other setbacks just happen to us, even when we occupy the sport in sensible ways. Examples include adverse weather, the loss of opportunities, accidents, or illnesses. In these moments, we can be tempted to despair.
It feels trivial to call it despair when things go wrong in a hobby. Racing is a form of hardship we willingly undergo, unlike many forms of suffering that are unchosen, for which there is no opting out. But the point is, running can be discouraging. It provides us with many opportunities to feel bad, or worse — to feel bad for ourselves. In these situations, certain character traits are helpful in fortifying us against despair.
I call them the Virtues of Despair Resistance. These are character traits that help us to navigate difficulties with excellence. Since they are character traits, they are open to us; we can acquire them. Examples include joy, resilience, and hope.
Joy
Some people smile a lot while running. Good for them. I do not. I wear the vacant expression of someone who is physically present but mentally far away, thinking about something else (2). Maybe you are like me — a non-smiley runner. This does not mean you can’t be joyful. Joy is not the same thing as a smiley face or happy feelings.
Often the way we talk about joy in popular discourse is misleading, in that we describe it as a feeling or a passing sensation. Strictly speaking, joy is not a feeling, but it can restrain sad feelings from overtaking us, and can prevent us from falling easily into despair. I like to think of joy as akin to an ocean buoy. Storms come. The buoy wobbles. But joy always resurfaces. When pressed down, it resists sinking (3).
So, what is joy, if not a feeling? Thomas Aquinas defines it as a “consequence of love (4).” Joy involves a kind of happy alignment with one’s good purpose that provides internal stability (5). It is this aspect of joy — that it is rooted in an internal condition, rather than external circumstances (6) — that makes it valuable during setbacks. A joyful runner has an internal anchor, or buoyant fixity, on her purpose, that helps carry her through the difficult miles.
Hope
After my first daughter was born and I started competing again, I detected a pattern: I trained less than previously (as moms often do), but I stood on the starting line of races without ever adjusting my goals. I would set out at paces suitable to the memory of myself — the high mileage ghost of my past — and try to run her races. I would hope for something to click.
Realistically, it was not hope that I was experiencing. It was wishful thinking, or optimism. I presumed too much of my own abilities, beyond what I had prepared for (7). This invariably resulted in failure.
Sabrina Little and her daughter, Lucy, at the 2021 Cave Run Marathon.
According to Aquinas, hope is a desire for an arduous good that is difficult but possible to obtain (8). This is a virtue that is inherently tensed (9), meaning its object is some future good. Hope is active, not passive, and it is rooted in reality. Hope is neither optimistic nor pessimistic. It “finds a middle way between the vices of presumption and despair (10).”
Hope is an important virtue for runners because it keeps us from languishing in setbacks. Hope tethers us to a vision of an arduous, yet attainable good.
My advice about this virtue is twofold. First, friends or running buddies can remind us to be hopeful when things get hard. It is difficult to sustain hopes when we are all alone. Second, we should place hope in solid things that are less fickle than our bodies. This can be especially important in helping us avoid despair through times of injury or illness.
Resilience
Resilience is the virtue of recovery. It involves “maintain[ing] effective agency in the face of fluctuations in evidence (11).” The resilient runner chooses and acts in light of the possibility of renewal, even when she detects little progress (12). I recently wrote about resilience on iRunFar, so I will keep this brief, with two reminders.
The first is that resilience does not always mean having the sport restored to you in the same condition that you lost it. There are some injuries that we never recover from completely. We might carry the marks of certain hardships our entire lives. Resilience does not always mean erasing these marks; sometimes it means learning how to move forward despite them.
Second, community matters a great deal for resilience, just as it does for hope. Friends help us through the tough times. It is difficult to recover all by ourselves. So, if you are struggling through setbacks, reach out to a friend. And if you are not, be the friend who offers support.
Snowy scenes on the author’s recent run.
Final Thoughts
Running is full of challenges — injuries, illnesses, training lulls, thwarted race plans, adverse weather conditions, and other infelicities. To remain in the sport long term, we often have to reckon with these things. Where character makes a difference, these virtues can help. Hopefully, you can make it through your setbacks more gracefully than I dealt with my Summer of Chair.
Call for Comments
- Do you struggle to stay positive when experiencing running setbacks?
- What do you find helps?
Notes/References
- Powell, A. 23 February 2016. Where Runners Go Wrong. The Harvard Gazette. Web <https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/02/where-runners-go-wrong/> Accessed 6 February 2025.
- Maybe you have seen a facial expression like this if you hold meetings over Zoom.
- Little, S. 2024. The Examined Run. Oxford University Press, p. 127.
- Aquinas, T. Summa Theologiae II.2.28.4.
- Little, S. 2024. The Examined Run. Oxford University Press, p. 127-8.
- Pinckaers, Servais-Théodore. 2015. Passions and Virtue. Catholic University Press, pp. 42– 43.
- Lamb, M. 2022. A Commonwealth of Hope: Augustine’s Political Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 2.
- Aquinas, T. Summa Theologiae, II.2.17.1
- Pinches, C. 2014. On Hope. In Virtues and Their Vices, edited by K. Timpe & C. Boyd, 349-368. Oxford University Press, p. 351.
- Lamb, M. 2022. A Commonwealth of Hope, p. 2; Lamb, M. Be what you hope for. Aeon. 26 June 2023.
- Snow, N.E. 2019. Resilience and Hope as a Democratic Civic Virtue, in Virtues in the Public Square: Citizenship, Civic Friendship, and Duty, Ed. James Arthur, Routledge Press, pp. 124–139.
- Snow, N.E. 2019. Resilience and Hope as a Democratic Civic Virtue, 119-120.
