Join SSI on Thursday, April 9 from 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm to learn about endurance training and the development of perseverance from Dr. Sabrina Little.
Perseverance is the virtue of persisting long in something good until it is accomplished. This virtue is critical in a good life because it enables someone to commit to worthy objectives and see them through to completion. Interestingly, there is a rich empirical literature on improving endurance, full of valuable insights for virtue educators concerning how to develop perseverance, but this work has been insufficiently employed for this purpose. This article places the endurance sports literature in conversation with Aristotelian character education. It examines developmental patterns, such as periodization of training and structured rest, and evaluates the role that practical principles of endurance training might play in developing the virtues.
About the Speaker:
Sabrina Little is a philosopher in the Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society at The Ohio State University. Her research is in virtue theory, character development, and classical philosophy. Her first book, The Examined Run (OUP 2024), explores how to use sports as a laboratory for virtue development. Sabrina is a former professional runner. She held two American records and was a World Championships silver medalist.