4x4x48 Challenge
Last weekend I took on the 4x4x48 challenge (run 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours). It is both a physical and mental challenge, offering a quality training block for the 50 mile and up distance. The bigger point here though, is to commit to a challenging goal and persevering especially with those late evening/early morning sessions. This will provide a strengthening experience you can lean on later in life when times get tough. This challenge can be scaled down to 1, 2, or 3 miles every 4 hours or by substituting the run with a walk, bike, yoga, etc as needed. Everyone has their own personal goals and baseline. Thanks to David Goggins for the challenge idea.
The final tally, 48.6 miles, 14 hours of moving time, and approximately 14,300ft of elevation gain and another 14.3K ft of descent.
Halfway through run #1 I came up with a little fundraiser idea for my good friends Kat & Pavel. Kat, a 20-year vet and former Air Force major, was paralyzed from the shoulders down in 2015. She continues to do more than a lot of able bodied folks, working on an advanced degree and starting a non-profit to help others in need. Kat and Pavel need to cover $100,000/year out of pocket to cover the 24/7 care Kat needs to survive. She has an incredible opportunity to go to Colorado later in the year to participate in an exciting new neuroplasticity rehab program that has hopes of introducing some form of mobility back. They were running a fundraiser campaign to cover the costs of transportation, lodging, meals, etc. while there.
My plan was to donate $10 after each run, for a total of $120. I would advertise this fundraiser push using facebook after each run. In addition to my contribution, we raised a total of $650 in under 48hours thanks to the many gracious donations.
Save for one run during a day-trip to Tehachapi, I used the trail system in our backyard to accomplish this challenge. My focus was on a lot of elevation gain and running technical terrain, something the hills around our housing community had plenty of.
A typical loop around our backyard
Lessons learned and thoughts pondered
This type of challenge is a good training block for larger projects to come, like my first 100-miler. Although postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was still a good opportunity for a fitness check. Some lessons learned and reflections pondered below:
Sleep: Getting quality sleep during this challenge was difficult at first. Your mind races pretty quick and you are full of adrenaline. At first my strategy was to let my mind do whatever it wanted since i didn’t want to actively engage it and focus on slowing down since I figured actively engaging my mind would backfire and keep me awake even longer. When you are covering the 4 miles in 60-80 minutes, on-top of taking care of your nutrition, gear, and stretching, you only have about 60-90 minutes to sleep between runs before having to get ready to head out again. Letting my mind wander did not work, I was too revved up to fall asleep even by night two. I learned how to actively slow down my mind first, before focusing on falling asleep. This skill can come in handy when in multi-day stressful situations where every little bit you can sleep will be beneficial in the long run. I totaled 6 hours of sleep over 48 hours and felt coherent and alert at all times.
The trails are fairly technical, with rocks of all sizes and shapes. You have to pay attention during each footstep and can’t let your mind wander! Getting some quality short sleep sessions in worked great in keeping my awareness up throughout the 48 hours. I did not intake any caffeine during this challenge either.
Nutrition: Overall this challenge was a good exercise in eating before you get hungry, and taking in fluids before you get thirsty. Keeping it simple is important during a challenge like this. I would typically eat something small (piece of fruit, piece of toast, bowl of cereal, etc.) when I got back and something small before i headed out, along with my regular three main meals. Aside from a monster lunch at Redhouse BBQ (support your small business!) that made Run 6 probably the hardest run of them all, nothing was out of the ordinary for me in terms of nutrition approach.
Tackling 48 miles of hills requires a lot of energy. As per usual, the downhills kicked my ass as much if not more than the uphills. A lot of loose dirt and rocks makes descending a pretty slow and taxing exercise.
Starting up again after a break: The hardest part of this challenge was to get going after you have had the chance to relax at home after the previous effort. This is similar to getting moving after sitting down at an aide-station to change your shoes in an Ultra. You may not want to leave that comfy place! Once you get moving though, a lot of those worries melt away. Just like in everyday life, if you feel like you don’t want to tackle a difficult challenge, just get moving in the right direction and then decide if you still want to put it off. Most of the time you’ll realize that initial inertia will snowball into tremendous motivation and potential. Make not quitting a habit.
Once you get out of the house and start running, you are treated with fantastic views like this!
Focus on the basics: One of these fundamental life lessons is that you tackle big projects and challenges one step at a time. We all know the saying of you gotta eat an elephant one bite at a time or, if you arent into eating elephants, the greatest journey begins with a single step. While its simple to remember these sayings, it is not as easy to implement them when the going gets really tough and you haven't practiced them. This can make you feel overwhelmed easier and lead you to not taking on as big of a challenge as you are truly capable of. These life lessons are like a muscle, they will wither away if you don't tackle hard projects from time to time to refresh and recertify them. I am tackling this 4x4x48 one run at a time, then one hill at a time, and finally, one step at a time.
Running towards one of the three major hills in the trail loop I used (the one in the foreground). That hill offers more than 400ft of elevation gain in less than 400ft, so it is definitely one step at a time!
Do the challenge even if you think you will fail: All of this work made possible by simply applying some fundamental life lessons. One of those is fear of failure. Unfortunately failure is too often seen in a negative light in our society, which will limit the amount of risks and challenges one might undertake due to the fear of failure. In truth, failure is one of the best learning and building tool known to man. It offers a new starting point and allows you to reassess and reengage in a better way than originally planned. I can fail this challenge at anytime, whether it is due to something under my control or not. Don't mistake failure with quitting. You are allowed to fail, you just aren't allowed to quit.
A day trip to Tehachapi allowed us to mix things up for Run/Hike #5.
Make the simple decision to just get moving: Getting out of a comfy warm bed isnt always easy, especially if you have to go run 4 miles in the middle of the night, but I have learned to use the 1 second decision to tackle this and many other small challenges. When you are faced with a decision, usually an unpleasant one, take the first step within that first second of facing the decision, and then figure out how to proceed from there. If you hear your alarm go off, you set it for a reason, don't turn it off to then turn over and give in to the comfy bed, use the one second decision to turn it off and take the first step to getting up. At a minimum this involves sitting up and kicking your legs over the side, then you figure out the rest from there. This should be done on autopilot. The same concept works for opening up a textbook to study or getting to the gym for a workout. These are the first steps that force you to make a decision rather than giving into the instinctually more comfortable route.
With local trails like these it may be easier to start moving!
Take the time to be alone with your thoughts: One additional benefit this challenge provides is the opportunity to spend some quality time alone with your thoughts, an exceedingly rare opportunity in this age of instant entertainment and resources vying for your attention. We all have a governor in our mind that will tell us to pull back when fatigue or stress is encountered. It is a survival mechanism and is necessary for us to thrive as a species. But in a lot of first world societies where comfort is fairly easy to come by, those governor limits have continuously been lowered. I have been grinding for 14 hours alone in the hills, and this has given me invaluable time to explore my mind, my capabilities and limitations, and to experiment with that governor setting. This is something you cant learn from a book or from a documentary, it requires hands on experience and time. Optimize your governor to allow yourself to push past the initial stages of fatigue and stress so you leave less potential on the table.
Perspective
The biggest attribute that has allowed me to tackle these types of challenges is perspective. No matter how hard a challenge is, whether it is at school, on the job, or in training, there has always been someone who has done something more difficult with a lot less. With that in mind I decided to, with each run, pay my gratitude to those who have done things that make my little 4x4x48 challenge look like a walk in the park. A few highlights below.
Run 1: For this run, I expressed gratitude to Kat Portillo. She continues to face challenge head-on every single day that are much harder than anything I can even think about. Thank you Kat.
Run 2: For this run, I expressed gratitude for James Bollich. He is a survivor of the 65 mile Bataan death march that claimed the lives of an estimated 20,000 POWs. He is also the author of the book “A Soldiers Story”. Thank you James.
Run 3: For this run, I expressed gratitude for Kyle Maynard. Kyle is a mountaineer, crossfit gym owner, best selling author of the book “No Excuses”, record setting weight lifter, MMA fighter, and ambassador for numerous non-profits among many other accolades. And oh, he was born with no arms and no legs. He leads by example by living a life with no excuses and showing us we are capable of a lot more than we often think. Thank you Kyle!
Run 4: For this run, I expressed gratitude for Mike Day. A former US Navy Seal, he was shot 27 times during a house raid in Iraq in 2007, then to walk to the medevac helo under his own power. In 2015 he competed in his first half IronMan triathlon. Reading his story is the reason why I got into Triathlon 4 years ago which kickstarted my endurance racing journey. Thank you Mike!
Hike 5 & Run 6: For these runs, I expressed gratitude to Air Force Maj Troy Gilbert. He perished in 2006 while making a close air support gun run in his F-16 over the skies of Iraq. One of the main assembly halls at Air Force Officer Training School, where I first found out about his story, is named after him. He and his family were the inspiration of my first fundraiser for Folds Of Honor back during my first half-IronMan triathlon in 2017. This kick-started my annual fundraising efforts and made me realize that the most fulfilling goal in life is to try and help others in need. Thank you Maj Troy Gilbert.
Run 7: For this run, id like to pay gratitude to Derek Weida. As a trooper in the 82nd airborne he got shot through the knee during a house-raid in Iraq. Following multiple years of failed surgeries, he made the decision to amputate above the knee. He is very open and honest about his struggles during those dark times of failed surgeries and lowest of lows, and very open about the role fitness has played to turn his life around. His humorous and no-bull approach to personal growth helped me change my mindset about mental and physical fitness 5 years ago, changes that have allowed me to build the foundation to tackle challenges like these. Thanks Derek!
Run 8: For this run, I’d like to pay gratitude to Jocko Willink. He has an incredible podcast (Jocko Podcast) where he does a great job at wrapping these types of life lessons into interviewing and discussing the lives of some of the most incredible and resilient people to have walked this earth. I mentioned at the start of this challenge that perspective is what allows me to do alot of these hard challenges, and Jocko is responsible for exposing me to the majority of that perspective. Thanks Jocko!
Run 9: For this run, I expressed gratitude to the man himself, David Goggins, the inspiration behind this whole endeavor. Despite being brought up in a very abusive childhood, having to lose more than 100pounds in 3 months to get into the US Navy and going through three hell weeks at BUD/S, Goggins has made a name for himself by raising hundreds of thousands (!) of dollars for the Special Operations Warfare Foundation by taking on some of the worlds toughest challenges. He shows what is possible with a strong mind and a strong body. Thank you David.
Run 10: For this run, I expressed gratitude to the Iron Cowboy, James Lawrence. James has been pushing his mind and body to new baselines for years. In 2015, he completed 50 IronMan triathlons, in 50 consecutive days, in 50 US states. Definitely not recommended, but an incredible and inspiring example of what a seemingly average human being (he has/had a day job and 5 kids) can accomplish with the right amount of fortitude. He put doing a single Ironman into perspective! Thank you james.
Run 11: For this run, I expressed gratitude to Rose Schindler. She was only 14 when she got sent to Auschwitz concentration camp as a prisoner. She was able to survive the most vile and evil human intentions in the history of mankind. Her and her husband Max, also a survivor, wrote the eye opening book “Two Who Survived”. Thank you Rose.
