Eric Walker

It has been over 4 hours and I haven’t posted anything 🤔😂… Well, hope no one got too irritated with all my running log posts every 4 hours and trust me I won’t be doing that for a while. Or at least not till 2022 at the earliest 🤣 (29 days and counting…)

Running Log: 4x4x40 +8 - 12/10 (8:51 pm) - 4.03 miles at 8:35/mi pace, 39°F 🌧

Overshot my goal and did the actual 4x4x48. After 40 I found some time to kill while my kids were at activities and I thought what was 2 more runs or 8 more miles. Then my luck, rain 🤦‍♂️🤷‍♂️🏃🏻‍♂️

Running Log: 4x4x40 +4 Leveling up 😁 - 11/10 (4:46 pm) - 4.03 miles at 8:27/mi pace, 41°F ☁️

Had some time while my girls were at dance so I decided to keep going.

Running Log: 4x4x40 - 10/10 🎉 (12:58 pm) - 4.69 miles at 8:06/mi pace, 45°F ☁️

A cloudy final run that a running friend joined me on. He was in charge of the pace and mileage and lets just say in my opinion he failed at both 😁. It was good to have some company though.🏃‍♂️

Running Log: 4x4x40 - 9/10 (9:52 am) - 4.02 miles at 8:35/mi pace, 38°F ☀️

Sunny day on the trails makes getting out there pretty easy. Well except for all of these fire drills at work 🤦‍♂️🏃‍♂️

Running Log: 4x4x40 - 8/10 (5:04 am) - 4.02 miles at 8:59/mi pace, 40°F 🌌

Less sleep in between than I hoped, my wife woke up not feeling well. So I did what I could to help her get. I think I got 1hr of sleep but it is not easy at this hour to shut the mind down.

Running Log: 4x4x40 - 7/10 (1:02 am) - 4.02 miles at 8:47/mi pace, 47°F ☁️

Well hello there… 🦌🏃🏻‍♂️

Running Log: 4x4x40 - 6/10 (7:57 pm) - 4.01 miles at 8:31/mi pace, 48°F 🌥

Over halfway done. Time for some short night’s rest before the next one.

Running Log: 4x4x40 - 4/10 (1:01 pm) - 4.02 miles at 8:33/mi pace, 45°F ☁️

This one I turned into a grocery store run as we needed a couple things for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow.🏃‍♂️

Running Log: 4x4x40 - 5/10 (4:41 pm) - 4.02 miles at 8:59/mi pace, 50°F 🌥

Probably shouldn’t have run the trails as it got dark faster than I anticipated. 🏃🏻‍♂️

Running Log: 4x4x40 - 3/10 (9:00 am) - 4.01 miles at 8:51/mi pace, 36°F 🌥

I should have guessed that the boardwalks would have had a little ice on them from the late night rain 🤦‍♂️🏃‍♂️

Running Log: 4x4x40 - 2/10 (5:02 am) - 4.02 miles at 8:55/mi pace, 37°F 🌘🌥

I wish I would have slept more since that first run but it is what it is at this point… 🏃‍♂️

Running Log: 4x4x40 - 1/10 (1:01 am) - 4.02 miles at 8:39/mi pace, 36°F 🌧

Nothing like starting out this challenge in the middle of the night while it is raining 🤦‍♂️. At least I can check out Christmas lights along the way 🏃🏻‍♂️

Earlier this year I had a plan to run 40 miles with a really good friend of mine through the mountains of Colorado. We thought it would be fun to run 40 miles since we both turned 40 this year. Not to mention suffering together and probably laughing along the way made it seem like a feat that could be pushed through to accomplishment. The timing was not going to be great for me as it was one month before my Twin Cities Marathon but I was game to do it as it sounded amazing. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure how to train for such a thing but I just said yes and he said he would work out the details. The bummer is around May he hurt his ankle and knew the run wouldn’t happen. I was bummed that it fell apart but it probably worked out since I hadn’t run a marathon for 20 years and I wasn’t sure what I was in for. I am sure it probably wouldn’t have been great to come in not feeling the best from a 40 mile run through the mountains no matter how long it took us.

Fast forward to about 1 month before I ran the marathon and I stumbled across this concept of running 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours. At the time I didn’t know anything about it but thought that had a nice ring to it. However, the whole 48 hrs didn’t mesh with my goal so I figured I would modify it slightly to fit as a 4x4x40 instead 😁.

4 miles every 4 hours for 40 hours since I am 40 this year

That leads me up to now… After the marathon, I have been trying to take it easy and just running for pleasure but I feel like I have been missing something as I had hoped to do something else with this year 40. After pondering this for the last month, I realized that if I am going to do it I need to do it before it gets too cold in the night to complete this task so I am going to start tonight (or today) and we will see how this goes.

I do know more about the real 4x4x48 challenge and the guy who created it. However, my goal still has not changed. I will probably write about it as I go mostly just to document it along the way so I apologize to anyone not interested in this disregard my posts for at least more than 40 hrs from the first. Then we will be back to our regularly scheduled posting.

I don’t have any main goals in mind if you are wondering. My goal is probably to do as many of these 4x4s that I can in hopes to get to 40 but that is a lot of mileage for me in a short amount of time. Also, I am not concerned about my pace either except hoping I don’t go too fast at any point as that could screw things up. Either way, this is going to be an interesting experiment no matter how many I get done so we will see how it goes!

A final note for those interested, I am still working and getting kids to school and activities. So I am kind of treating this as just some breaks throughout my day and that is another reason why this time lined up perfectly. In the perfect world, I would only be doing this 40hrs with no other responsibilities. 🤷‍♂️