This weekend, I will be taking on 4x4x48 Goggins Challenge. A yearly challenge put on by David Goggins, I will be running 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 consecutive hours starting on Friday night at 6pm and finishing on Sunday afternoon. The structure of the challenge is to challenge yourself both physically through running 48 miles in 48 hours and also mentally from the discomfort of never having more than ~3 hours between runs. Being short on sleep will surely become a factor towards the end of the challenge. Below is the schedule that I will be following for the weekend:
The first question that most people come up with upon hearing about something like this is… why? Simply put, this is just a unique way to challenge yourself that is unlike most races you will find out there, a way to figure out what you are capable of physically and mentally - I feel strongly that doing hard things from time to time is good for you.
I have been following David Goggins for years now and have always been interested in his message – when looking for something to do after the Ironman last year, this seemed like the perfect challenge. 48 miles is roughly equal to the most that I’ve run during any single week in my life. Breaking the runs apart into 4-mile increments certainly makes the physical aspect of the challenge easier, but also presents several challenges that I will have to account for going into the weekend. Because of that, I wanted to lay out some of the logistics and my plan for the challenge to see how closely I am able to follow it given that I will be reaching some uncharted territory on Saturday night/Sunday morning.
The most obvious variable throughout the challenge will be the running itself. Though within that, there are several things that I will be planning around:
- I will be looking to keep my early runs in Zone 2, which will make them pretty easy runs. The goal is to be around a 9:30 pace depending on the weather – this is a pretty conservative pace to start that I may decide to speed up if I am feeling strong as it gets later on Saturday
- I am also about 4 months into transitioning from traditional running shoes into minimalist shoes (Xero HFS) – I am currently doing all daily miles up to 10 in these shoes and anything over that in my old ASICS. In the spirit of sticking to that plan, I will be switching off each run between the minimalist and standard running shoes. This is another thing I’ll be thinking about as the miles pile up – if my feet are feeling sore during the later miles I may opt for staying in the ASICS more
- Since the runs will all be less than 40 mins long, I won’t be doing any mid-run fueling, this will all be done at home
The next challenge that sticks out is what to do about sleep:
- I’ve never taken part in a challenge that purposefully restricted my sleep, so I am not 100% sure how well I’ll perform in these circumstances – because of this I am will have to stay flexible and be willing to sleep whenever I am able
- Initially, my plan will be to get as much sleep as possible between the 3 nighttime runs at 10pm – 2am – 6am. Best case scenario, this is probably 2-2.5 hours each, totaling 4-5 hours per night – which I don’t think is an unbearable amount of sleep. The big challenge here will be calming down as quickly as possible after each run to be able to fall asleep and then needing to wake back up with enough time to ramp up for the next run.
- Just in case I feel like taking a nap during the day, I’ll be setting alarms for all 12 runs to make sure I’m ready for each
The most important thing to control throughout this weekend is going to be my nutrition and hydration. I will be totaling around 7.5 hours of running during a 48 hour span with minimal time to fuel between runs without eating too close to the next one. Some quick math says that I will have to eat something like 11-12,000 calories during the 48 hours.
- Because of the short turnaround times between runs, I am going to be cooking all of my food ahead of time on Thursday and Friday so that I have to do nothing but reheat food immediately after each run to get some fuel in
- I’ve decided to go the taco route because I can mix and match ingredients to not eat the same thing after each run (and I also love tacos) – I’ll be have steak, rice, tortillas, beans, corn, salsa, guac, siracha, and eggs for a breakfast twist in the mornings
- I’ll also have some leftover spaghetti and meatballs just in case I get bored of the tacos at some point
- I will be paying close attention to how I feel relative to how much water and salt I am drinking – I’ll be consciously trying to drink as much water as possible as well as adding at least 1 LMNT packet (1,000 mg of sodium per packet) no less than after every other run.
The last factor is the weather. Unfortunately, I don’t have the best luck with weather – it is currently forecasted to snow 5-8 inches on Friday afternoon around when I will be starting the challenge. Though this isn’t quite as disruptive as the pouring rain I dealt with during the Ironman, I will probably have to be ready to do a couple loads of laundry for my wet clothes and shoes to make sure I am ready to get back out there every 4 hours.
If I’ve learned anything since the Ironman, its that bad weather just makes for a better story – the more snow the better. Stay Hard.