2010 Winter Crossfit Endurance Challenge

Video capturing everything from the beginning to the end of the challenge


A little background:
My name is Ben. I am a believer in the Crossfit methodology and most of my programming (at least now) has been involved with improving at the sport. My good friend Dan (His blog can be found at http://rotatoridan.blogspot.com ) and myself have been avid Crossfitters for nearly three years, although we have taken substantial time off in between for lacrosse seasons, experimentation with other programs (P90x), etc. We are currently doing Crossfit strength bias. This challenge was in no way to improve any form of our conditioning, although I am currently planning on running a 50k in 3 weeks that I should receive benefits from off this challenge.


Dan and I decided a couple of months prior to this day that we wanted to try something really difficult that would test our mental and physical endurance. I remembered that during the summer when I was following Crossfit Endurance that on the 4th of July a work out came up that took over a day. It seemed like it fit the bill perfectly for something we could try and had been talking about doing it for a while. At some point, we decided to give it a shot when we both were home from our respective colleges for winter break. We thought it would make it even more difficult and actually hoped for bad weather to make the challenge even more "epic." In the end we received our wish and got snow along with 24 of the hardest hours we've ever gone through. The following is an attempt to recapture some of this event.

The work out was simply as follows:

10 minutes on, 50 minutes off x 24. Use the 50 minutes in between to rest, recover, sleep, hydrate and/or fuel.

We began the work out at 9pm on Wednesday December 22, 2010. From what I remember the first couple hours went by rather uneventfully. We were fully indulged in games of Madden that captured our attention for much of the 50 minutes in between running sessions. We were happy with the pace we set and decided to keep it consistent the entire time in hopes of reaching over 24 total miles covered. We ran the same loop repeatedly. 22 of the 24 intervals were done on the same loop. The other 2 were deviations to end at my house (down the street from Dan's) for my mother to make us a breakfast in support of us finishing, and the other was to try a new one that we ended up not liking.

The challenge started to get interesting around 1am. By that point we were starting to get pretty tired and burnt out from Madden, and started watching TV. I think Dan would agree with me that the 50 minutes in between was harder some of the hours than the actual run portion was. There was times where it felt like 2 hours was going by, and it got discouraging when 30 minutes felt so long. The time period from 1am to sunrise was kind of weird to think about. I can honestly say I do not remember a lot of it. I would try to sleep in between for maybe 10-15 minutes, but it wasn't really sleeping. I've always been one to take a while to fall asleep and by the time I was nearly ready to relax and doze off the alarm would be sounding to get my butt up and go again. The weirdest part about this portion was how surreal it was. It seemed like Dan's dad had only gone to sleep an hour ago when he was arising 7 hours later to go to work bright and early. The night went by with us getting more tired and looking forward to the sun to hopefully wake us up. We were granted our wish of getting snow during our runs, and although it only happened during 3-4 of them in total it was nice to see.


During the night I made the mistake of eating a little bit too much. I'm blessed to have an iron stomach for when I run. I can put down large quantities of anything and usually feel fine. I had some peanut butter, oreos and an apple around 3AM. For the next 12 hours I had severe heartburn that would not go away no matter how many TUMS I consumed. I know it was the peanut butter and will never eat that again during any running or endurance work out.

From 6AM to noon was also a slight blur. I was really out of it at this point and it was starting to just get tedious. 8o clock in the morning marked the half way point for runs, and by that time I was just pleading for the event to end. I would rather be honest with myself and say that there was many times I would've loved to quit. I'm still developing the sense of telling myself that I am not quitting under any circumstance. Dan had some nagging injuries and there was times where I was praying he would ask to stop because of them. On the bright side, had he suggested that we end the challenge I probably would've said no, but I know there would've been some manjor reluctance. I would rather put this in writing now so that when I'm more experienced with endurance challenges I can look back and hopefully see that this has improved.

My mom cooked us breakfast at 10AM. We refueled with some primal food that tasted good after all the junk we'd been putting down. By this time I was over tired, but was not very beaten down physically. My legs were well prepared for this event after the ~23 mile run I did a few weeks prior. I think I was much better prepared for this run as I tend to excel at running where Dan tends to excel in the weightroom. We've become different athletes where we used to be pretty much even (at least with weights and running) and both had interests in the exact same form of training. A lot of this stems from my rehab from elbow injuries and deciding to give ultra-running another shot.

I noticed in the early AM that it was crazy how little it took to entertain us. Dan and I began to get really loopy during our conversations. As weird as that sounds, I'm sure he would vouch for what I'm saying. We would find ourselves having weird conversations running down the road, or bringing up random things from our past that had no relevance to anything. That and my speech was beginning to slur slightly, and I would forget what we were talking about too. During the night me and Dan also both admitted to seeing things on several occasions that were not there. The stuff we were watching on TV would make us laugh just for the sake of laughing. In retrospect I feel like we needed to keep laughing to keep our spirits up and forget about the daunting number of times we had to venture out into the cold again.

Once the afternoon rolled around we began to get a little antsy. We moved out of his basement for a change of scenery as everything was getting to repetitive. At this point we went and showered for the second time (first one being in the early AM) and changed clothes which felt nice. One of the hardest parts of the challenge was the severe chafing we both got which was alleviated with showers and Gold Bond. From 1-4pm was probably the hardest part of the whole challenge. It seemed like the end was near but it was still so far away when you thought about it. Besides a 20 minute nap on the rock hard floor I took in the early afternoon, the only sleep I got the whole challenge was at 5am for about 15 minutes, and one last quick snooze right before the last 10 minute interval. Each run was beginning to get more and more frustrating because we knew how long we had to wait until the next one was scheduled to start.

The sun going down on Thursday was pretty crazy. We started the challenge in the dark, watched the sun rise, then saw the sun go down again. This whole time we were running what seemed like random ten minute intervals when in reality they were calculated and schedule. The realization of this was kind of interesting and sort of motivating. Probably the best part about the last 5 runs was that the 50 minutes in between there were good TV shows on which helped pass the time.

The last interval finally came. I was awoken by Dan and told it was time to go. We strapped on our gear and headed out. At this point there was only 10 minutes from us reaching our goal and I didn't even care. It wouldn't be far away from the truth to say I've probably never been this out of it, and the amazing thing is I was sober. The 10 minutes went by and seeing that last road of our loop was a great feeling. When 10 minutes struck on the Ipod timer I believe my exact words were "Fuck you challenge, we just kicked your ass." I was thrilled to have finally finished.

It didn't hit me what I'd done until we got into Dan's basement. We took off our stuff and his Mom took a few pictures of us and his family congratulated us. His brother had a joke going about picking what hour we would quit the challenge at. Major props were given to us for completing it. At this point I was pretty much gone mentally. I had a slight euphoria feeling from finishing but I could not wait to pack everything up and go home. We filmed the rest of our tape (9 minutes of footage by the way; hoping to get a video made and I'll edit it in) and I packed my stuff in my car and headed back to my house. I ate a lot of food, not really caring what I shoveled down and headed downstairs. I was asleep by 10pm and slept over 11 hours.

All in all I can honestly say this is the hardest thing I've ever put my body through mentally or physically. The toll of waiting far outweighed the actual running portion in my opinion. Me and Dan completed 24.29 miles in total. Some things I learned:

- Never eat PB during a run again.
- Pick a pace early and stick to it.
- Feed off other's energy if its there for the taking to keep you going
- Don't think about what's ahead. Don't break it up. Just keep it as far out of your mind as possible and think about the positives
- Set a goal on how much you realistically think you can accomplish
- Focus on hydration more.
- Address stride issues if you need to, because it makes the run portion 10x worse if you don't.

The distances from each interval, taken from Mapmyrun and logged after each interval was completed:

1.02
1.03
1.03
1.03
1.03
1.03
1.03
1.02
1.03
1
0.97
1.03
1.03
1.01
1.01
1.03
1.03
1.03
1
0.9
1
1
1
1

Total: 24.29



I'm hoping that this challenge will help me succeed in running my first ultra on January 9th. It was all that and more and I'm really glad me and Dan pushed through and finished. I don't know if I would ever do it again, but if I did I would probably rather start in the early AM so that the portion during the night could be used for more sleep. I would also probably try and get more people to join in and try it out.

I sort of had an emotional connection to this whole event, which was not planned at all. We had planned to start it much earlier in the day, around 6pm ideally. However, life doesn't always stop for your plans. I was at a wake until around 8:15pm on Wednesday. A kid I grew up with that lived down the road from my old house was killed in a car accident on Sunday morning of this week with alcohol involved. It's just a reminder to love my life and stay smart in all my decisions. R.I.P. Joey. I often thought about him during the runs and used that energy to fuel some of the harder parts of the race.

In the end, this challenge was a positive experience. I would recommend anyone willing to partake in a challenging endurance event to give it a shot. I can promise you it will not dissapoint. For anyone who dos not specialize in endurance training this would be one hell of an accomplishment. Now that it's over, all I can say is it's time to catch up on some sleep and enjoy the holidays. Merry Christmas to everyone.


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The best picture of the day deserves to be the biggest. End of the challenge and time for bed.


















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Some of the other pictures we took during the challenge. Us flipping random fingers up are to indicate how many intervals we've completed at that point. Props to Dan's mom for getting us on camera sleeping. Didn't even know they were taken until we uploaded all the pictures.