A Powerful Principle I Learned Over One Challenging Weekend

I ran 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours

Do you love running?

Do you love it so much to use it as a medium to learn more about yourself despite hating it in the process?

Do you love it so much that you are confident to reclaim your love once you complete your endeavor?

I do.

That’s why I decided to spend the entire weekend hating running.

That’s why I decided to partake in the 4x4x48 challenge and run 4 miles every 4 hours from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon.

48 miles in 48 hours.

Welcome to the (Bathroom) Scene

It is 3:52 am, Saturday, March 6th and I just woke up standing in the bathroom. I don’t even remember turning off the alarm. Am I drunk?

It doesn’t matter. The weekend just began and I can crawl back into my bed. Then it hits me.

Proper sleep will have to wait … for another 40 hours. Now it’s time to run. At 4:00 am, I hit the road again and tick off the mandatory 4 miles.

My clothes are still wet from the previous run; 4 miles at midnight. I put on a clean hoodie and just five minutes after coming to my senses, I head out to the cold night.

I hate myself for taking part in this challenge. But I’ve pledged to complete it.

To my inner David Goggins.

The Legend of Goggins

This fitness pioneer and connoisseur of suffering has become an outright star in recent years. But if you are not familiar with this name, let me quote his website.

David Goggins is a retired Navy SEAL and is the only member of the U.S. Armed Forces to complete SEAL training (including two Hell Weeks), the U.S. Army Ranger School (where he graduated as Enlisted Honor Man) and Air Force Tactical Air Controller training.

As someone who finished more than 60 ultra-marathons, he has a solid reputation in the world of endurance races. The global popularity came after Goggins appeared as a guest on multiple podcasts and when he published his bestselling book Can’t Hurt Me.

He is one of the online mentors I have never met. Some of them are studious philosophers, others inspiring entrepreneurs, but Goggins is a hardcore grinder. He is a friend who doesn’t care about my complaints.

Goggins wants me to embrace the suck and attack my goals.

Often, I need such a blunt approach. Sometimes, we all need it.

I don’t know many as straightforward tasks as the 4x4x48 challenge.

4x4x48

It’s simple. You run 4 miles (6.5 kilometers) every 4 hours. You repeat this sequence 12 times until you reach 48 miles in 48 hours.

It’s an exhausting way to spend the weekend.

On Friday at 8:00 pm, I hit the road for my first four-miler. At midnight I ran again, at 4:00 am again until Sunday, 4 pm, when I clocked up my last run.

For several years, Goggins practiced this challenge to callus his mind and keep himself in check. He didn’t seek any public attention. When the pandemic struck, he launched it as a global movement.

In March 2021, the second edition of the challenge took place. At the end of March, Goggins already announced on his Facebook that he would be donating $200,000, splitting it across 20 charities.

What a legend.

Back to my humble story. The story of 48 long hours.

Running Against the Law

My country has one of the worst coronavirus death rates in the world. We are in the middle of a national tragedy. From 9:00 pm to 6:00 am, there is a curfew to stop the spread of the virus across the parties.

My night runs were not only crazy but also illegal. Yet, my conscience had no problem running against this rule.

I was at peace because I wasn’t seeing any people, only my own limits.

But I almost had an opportunity to advocate my violation of the curfew.

During one of the midnight runs, I nearly hit a police patrol. Running alone in the main city park, I enjoyed the solitude, when suddenly a slope of lights appeared in a distance.

I turned into the wilder part of the park, hid in the bush, and waited until the patrol passed.

When I imagined the dystopian future, I have never assumed it would be so comical.

But It Was No Fun

The overall fatigue and confusion during the night runs were just wicked.

When I woke up after two hours of sleep and right away headed for a run, I felt like a plastic bag floating in the vacuum. I wasn’t asleep, I wasn’t awake.

I just was.

But there were instances when I felt alive. I was running around the small park circuit (because I didn’t want to risk hitting the patrol again) and I felt like the only voyager in a deserted world.

The city was sleeping, hidden behind an ominous veil of the pandemic, and the whole universe shrank into the battle against my inner voice, which whispered to stop this madness and return to bed.

I enjoyed this solitude. I reveled in the silent world.

Miles 40–48

I found the takeaway, my lesson to share, in the last three painful runs.

Each step sent a wave of pain from my feet up to the battered hips. Every mile felt like five. My mind was screaming “not again”.

I didn’t treat the hours between my last runs as recovery time, I cursed it as a wicked prolongation of my suffering. I wanted all this bullshit to end.

Bingo. I found the treasure I've been looking for.

The difficulty and twisted beauty of this challenge lies in its intermittent nature.

Every four hours I had to dig deep and muster the fresh will to head out for a run.

The 4x4x48 Principle

If you stop your efforts whenever you get going, you rob yourself of momentum. You drive a wedge into your progress.

You have to create the energy to move again.

Each pause makes it harder to start. Each start requires more energy and determination than the previous one.

When you work hard to lose weight but slip up to gain it all back, it is harder to get back on track.

When you work on your personal goal, but lose the ambition along the way, it is harder to reclaim your ambition for the second time … or third time.

It’s not impossible, because nothing is impossible, each attempt is a steeper challenge. If you’re not careful, you can wake up horrified your energy tank is drained.

The 4x4x48 challenge has taught me that if you have a goal or a dream, you must strive to maintain your momentum of every earned mile.

Because after too many lapses, there may come a day of no more fresh starts.

Don’t invite this day into your life.

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