“We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience.”
John Dewey
First up, apologies for the radio silence for the past couple of weeks!
Those following me on my social channels would have seen what I was up to a couple of weeks ago, which was being extra dumb and doubling the Goggins Challenge.
If you don’t know what that means, the Goggins or 4x4x48 Challenge was devised by former Navy Seal David Goggins and it prescribes that you run 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours. For a total of 48 miles, or nearly a marathon every day for 2 days.
Having done the challenge in March 2021 before, I had planned to do it again last February with a group of friends, but then I got sick. Coincidentally, a few weeks later, Fergus Crawley who is my coach through Omnia Performance, doubled the Goggins Challenge and ran 4 miles every 4 hours for 4 days!!
To give you an insight into how many brain works: when I saw that I thought “That looks interesting… I should give it a go”.
All summer long I was looking for a good moment to get the challenge done, but then I thought that the really hard time to do it would be in winter. When it is dark. When it rains. When everything inside you wants to be warm and cosy inside.
And so I put it in the calendar for the week before Christmas, just before the winter solstice.
But, I thought running 96 miles was a silly number, since one more run would get you to 100 miles…
So starting two weeks ago on Tuesday at 4pm I set off. 5 days of running every 4 hours, through the night, in between school runs, family meals and the usual household chores (I had taken time off work of course).
But I didn’t announce my initial intentions of doubling the challenge, so I recorded this on run nr 13:
I filmed the whole endeavour and I’m really looking forward to sharing it with you soon, as this was an insane crucible which definitely pushed me physically and mentally.
And then 25 runs later on Saturday at 4pm I ran up the hill to be surprised by my family who endured this nonsense and supported me all the way through:
And for those of you who sent me messages throughout this journey: THANK YOU! The support was incredible!
The video will have to wait a bit also because of last weekend’s festivities which brought up to 40 people into our house at times. A very busy but equally amazing Christmas time, which is the highlight in our household every year, probably because I married Mrs Clause!
And for some reflections on the last year, here are some lessons I learned during an incredible year, which has taken us around the world to Hawaii, let us conquer mountains and allowed me to meet more people through this amazing newsletter and other social channels.
Pictures of Scotland from 2023
And lastly, I would like to thank you all for sharing this journey with me and for your continued trust and support with this newsletter!
Wow Tobi. That's a crazy high bar you're set for yourself. I love the John Dewey quote and look forward to your after-reflections, like whether you actually feel it was an "extra dumb" pursuit or if it yields unexpected rewards. Or both!