Persevering through the 4x4x48 Challenge for America's Veterans

After 6 years in the Army National Guard, with a deployment to Iraq, Jeff Burton moved back to Kentucky in 2012 to attend Western University. While there, he met his wife and in 2016 began a career at the Corvette plant. When they had their first child in 2019, Jeff realized how important his mental health was, and with encouragement from his coworkers, reached out to the VA. He hadn’t thought too much about PTSD or the suppressed anxiety and emotion it can cause. 

Jeff was already into fitness, and understood the benefit running has on mental health. In 2020, he told his wife he wanted to run a marathon before his 30th birthday. He started eyeing a local marathon and was deep into training when the event was canceled. At that point, he asked himself what he could do instead, something that would be an opportunity to really push himself.

While reading David Goggins book, Can’t Hurt Me, he read more about the 4x4x48 Challenge. The challenge is to run 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours. It’s physically and mentally daunting. What resonated for Jeff was that at first glance the challenge seemed almost unattainable. But as he broke it down into parts, it moved into the realm of achievable. With any book or philosophy, Jeff believes you take what works for you and it’s okay to discard the rest. So he texted two buddies and threw out the idea of them doing their own 4x4x48 challenge.

In 2021 and 2022, Jeff and his two friends took on the Goggins challenge, raising money for local charities. It was just them, without any cheering or glory. They planned, meal prepped, and strategized. “I don’t know how we made it through, I guess because we had each other,” Jeff says. Their miles were all running, and entailed simply meeting on the corner, where they would take off and run. The 4 AM runs were the toughest, and at times they really had to push their minds. Jeff would put out his clothes and food, and sleep on the couch so it was easier to get himself up. 

But after doing the challenge, Jeff found that it opened doors for him with his fitness and mindset. In 2021, when he got word the previously canceled Kentucky Derby marathon was being held just one month after completing their 4x4x48 challenge, he thought, “Yep, if I can do that challenge, I can do this”, and he did. He ran the marathon in a little over four hours. He then ran another marathon in under 4 hours in the fall of 2021.

What Jeff and his friends found by doing the 4x4x48 challenges together was that it was harder to roll over and quit. He feels he lived a month in that one weekend, and came out a whole different person.

This year, their third year, Jeff and his buddies did the 4x4x48 challenge to raise awareness of Team RWB. He learned about Team RWB from Bare Performance Nutrition, and after seeing Eagles at a Ragnar race, drove himself all the way to Pennsylvania to participate in last year’s Old Glory Relay. What he loves about Team RWB is that it’s an organization focused on being active and inclusive for families, and he’d like to start a chapter in his area. 

So for 2023, Jeff hosted a 4x4x48 but offered 12/24/48-hour versions. His wife participated, and they had more people running legs with them, including his coworkers and a neighbor training for a race. But Jeff and his buddies still had some epic legs all to themselves — they drove to a dairy farm for one nighttime leg, turned off the headlamps, and ran down a single lane road in the quiet moonlight.

For Jeff, the 4x4x48 challenge is the single toughest thing he does all year, and has become a stepping off point for coming out of winter, setting the tone for taking part in other challenges and being physically active. He went into their 2023 event with more self-doubt than usual — his second daughter was born in January, he’d been off work and was behind in sleep and planning — the area also lost power due to storms and one of his buddies even missed a running leg. Yet this year was their fastest average pace; they just knew they’d be able to figure everything out. Jeff believes, “If you want to be able to do great things, you have to push through the hard things.” 

Persevering through the 4x4x48, and the lessons learned on breaking down a big challenge into manageable pieces, is something that can be applied more broadly. By doing that, Jeff believes it’s possible for us to push through other physical challenges of great size. 

That’s why Mike Erwin, Team RWB’s founder and executive director, challenges Eagles to take on a BFG every year. A BFG, big fitness goal, is a publicly declared fitness goal that requires significant training and commitment to achieve it within the calendar year.

Some Eagles, like Jeff, take on the 4x4x48 challenge while others challenge themselves to take on running their first 5k since separating from service. Some commit to completing their first obstacle course race while others strive to increase their ruck distance and weight. That’s the beauty of Team RWB. You can customize your experience to your wellness journey and find a squad that helps you embrace the suck as you work towards your goals.

What are you waiting for?