Running 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours sounds simple on paper but sleep deprivation, fueling mistakes, and mental fatigue make it considerably harder in practise.

In this episode of The Amateur Athlete Diaries, I’m joined by Katie Williams to unpack her experience taking on the 4x4x48 challenge, a brutal endurance test that became less about running fitness and more about mindset, recovery, and self-belief.

Katie shares:

- Why she decided to take on the 4x4x48 just weeks after a 50km ultra

- What the challenge felt like between midnight treadmill runs and minimal sleep

- The mistakes she made with fueling and recovery, and what she’d do differently

- How sleep deprivation affected her body and nervous system- Why endurance challenges are as much about identity as they are performance

We also zoom out to explore how the challenge fits into her wider training life; balancing ultrarunning with powerlifting, learning when to pull back, and discovering how far you can go when the goal becomes simply showing up again.

This episode is a unfiltered look at endurance culture, pushing limits, and what Amateur Athletes can learn from doing something deliberately uncomfortable, without necessarily chasing perfection.

MyFitPod supported this episode.

MyFitPod is your own private gym. No waiting. No crowds. No gym-timidation. Just you — training on your terms.

Check it out here: https://myfitpod.co.uk/pages/my-fit-pod-basingstoke