On Saturday, March 2, the annual 4x4x48 took place at the University of Rhode Island, challenging participants to run four miles every four hours for 48 hours.
The challenge was first pioneered by David Goggins in March 2020. Goggins, who is a retired United States Navy SEAL, ultramarathon runner, ultra distance cyclist and triathlete, originally created this as a way to challenge people around the world to test their physical and mental strength. However, for the past four years, participants at URI have chosen to use the event as a way to fundraise for different organizations.
This year, the event aimed to raise money for Doctors Without Borders, a charity that provides humanitarian medical care for people in more than 70 countries. As of right now, the event has raised a grand total of $1,230. However, donations will continue to be accepted for the next two weeks.
The event attracted over 50 runners, all of varying skill levels. Many chose to run for a select few four-mile outings, however four members of the group ran all 12.
Third-year student Jonah Steinweh-Adler, URI alum Josh Montgomery (‘23), fourth-year student Nick Powers and Worcester Polytechnic Institute second-year Nathaniel Powers, helped organize the event and ran all 48 miles.
President Marc Parlange even joined in for one of the last few outings. For the final run, more than 45 students and community members could be seen jogging to promote the cause and raise the spirits of the runners. Steinweh-Adler was one of the four core group members who endured each run through campus.
“The more and more people we have, the easier and easier it gets,” Steinweh-Adler said. “It’s really remarkable, and that’s really the motivation.”
The runs were held rain or shine, and at one point, it was raining so heavily that by the end of the run, the group was soaked and had to completely change clothes, Nick Powers said.
“After all the rainy runs, we had probably four sets of clothes hanging in my room trying to dry,” Powers said. “It ended up making my room so humid, it was uncomfortable to stand in.”
Though the runs didn’t get any shorter, the weather did improve by the final few excursions and spirits were high as the event began to wind down.
“It was raining on Saturday night, but on the last run we had around 45 people show up and it was totally euphoric,” Steinweh-Adler said. “It was 56 degrees out, sunny, and there were beautiful fluffy clouds that looked like marshmallows.”
At one point, Steinweh-Adler and Powers had to run an extra few minutes in order to wake up a fellow runner.
“We had to run another quarter mile to go to [Montgomery’s] house,” Steinweh-Adler said. “I had to creep up into his room and barge in while he was sleeping and tell him it was time to run. He did that for both 6 a.m. runs.”
Some runners will train for years for this type of event. However, Powers and Steinweh-Adler had different techniques in approaching this challenge.
“I pretty much ran every day since October,” Powers said. “Between October and January I ran about five miles every day. Since January I’ve made it a goal that I have to run at least 1 mile every day.”
Steinweh-Adler, who has participated in the event for four years now, took a different route in approaching the run.
“I just run everyday as much as I can in February to train for the event itself and that’s pretty much how it rolls for me,” Steinweh-Adler said.
Both Steinweh-Adler and Powers are confident they will continue these runs in the future in order to raise money for different organizations over the next couple years.
“Doing it once is kind of like a gateway into doing it every year, for me,” Powers said. “I plan on doing it for the next few years. After seeing the impact and the way in which it connected so many people and really brought people together, it was very impactful on me.”
Not only will Powers continue the program at URI, but Steinweh-Adler will consider carrying the event with him to anywhere he might be in the future.
“I’m going to try to bring this anywhere I go,” Steinweh-Adler said. “It will be interesting to see how it evolves.”
The event concluded with a crowd of onlookers cheering the runners on and raised a significant amount of money for Doctors Without Borders. Students compelled to donate can visit donate.doctorswithoutborders.org and support the organization.