Runner completes grueling Navy SEAL challenge

Think you’re tough? Try this some time: Run four miles every four hours for 48 hours.

On the surface, it sounds fairly easy, but after two days of running with what to amounts no good sleep, a person has run nearly two marathons.

It’s a challenge presented by David Goggins, a retired Navy SEAL and Peyton Stephens, a junior at Columbia Falls High School, recently completed it.

“My knees are swollen and my feet hurt,” Stephens said the day after he completed the run.

If done to the exact specifications of the challenge, a person would run 48 miles.

But Stephens figures that he actually went 52.5 miles over two days.

“I wanted to do something that sucks,” the 16-year-old said during a recent interview.

And suck it did. His feet got huge blisters and his knees cramped up. He started on a Friday and finished on a Sunday.

He said Saturday night was the worst. He said he tried to use a sauna to loosen his tight muscles a bit. Did it work?

“No, not really,” he said,

In 15 months Stephens will join the Navy and the goal is to get accepted to the SEAL program and pass its physical screening test.

He’s also been working on his swimming and other aspects of the test, he said.