When Humboldt resident Jason Holtvogt first spoke to the Brainsport Times in the summer of 2021, he was preparing to embark on his first running challenge: an ultramarathon to raise money for diabetes research in honour of his daughter, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age four.
The ultramarathon was a big deal for Holtvogt, who had spent most of his life avoiding running of any kind. “In high school I actually didn’t like playing any sport that involved running,” he said. But when he heard about the David Goggins 4x4x48 challenge — which sees participants run four miles (6.4 kilometres) every four hours for 48 hours to log 48 miles (77.2 km) — he was struck by how perfect a metaphor it was for being a caregiver for someone with diabetes.
“When you or a loved one is diagnosed, you aren’t asked first ‘Is this something that you want to do?’ You are given a task that tests your mental toughness immediately,” he recalled at the time.
Holtvogt, now 47, completed his first Goggins challenge in August 2021 and — though he still doesn’t consider himself a runner — has turned the run into an annual event, with the fifth running coming up over the last weekend in May.
This week, Holtvogt reflects on his running journey and why the Goggins challenge has become so important to him.
Take me back to 2021. How did the first Goggins challenge go?
The training all went well. Because of COVID, kids’ activities were shut down so it made it easy to work out every night. I would just go to work, go home and work out.
That first year, we didn’t host an event because of the pandemic. I started my runs from a parking lot and one of the RV dealers had given me an RV to sleep in.
After I got done, I thought: I can’t believe I just did that. It was a pretty big deal for me.
It’s a bigger event now. Instead of running out of an RV in the parking lot of the Elgar Peterson Arena, we now rent the entire arena for a Dine-and-Dash Supper on the Friday night of the event where we will have 400 people out for supper, a live auction and The Saskatoon Soaps improv group for entertainment. For the fifth anniversary of the event, Dr. James Shapiro from the University of Alberta — a world-leading researcher in the development of a cure for Type 1 Diabetes — will be speaking as well.
On Saturday night we do what’s called a superhero run and all the caregivers dress up like someone who is an unsung superhero, or a regular Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman. You get a lot of people dressing up like people in the community. I run that in a blue tutu because a few months before my daughter was diagnosed, she had a dance recital and was dressed up in a blue tutu. The way she manages diabetes, she’s my real life superhero. And then we have a community walk on Sunday before I do my last run. So it’s turned into a whole weekend event.
In the last four years, we’ve successfully raised over $260,000 to send into DRIFCan, which funds the diabetes research Dr. Shapiro does at the University of Alberta.
Had it always been your intent to make this an annual event?
It wasn’t ever my intention to do it every year. I wasn’t even sure if I could do it once. But the point I was trying to make with doing this the first year was that you don’t always get a choice to do something big. A diabetic, when they’re diagnosed, or the caregiver of a diabetic, they don’t get a choice. So the way I’m treating this run is I don’t have a choice either.
I still don’t enjoy running. I mean I enjoy running when I’m running, but when I’ve got work and activities with kids, it is the furthest thing from my mind. I’m not thinking: I’d love to go for a run — I’d rather sit on the couch. But after the first year, I made up my mind that if I’ve got two legs, I’m going to go.
Do you run year-round to train?
What I’ve done in the past few years — and I wouldn’t suggest this to anyone — is as soon as I finish the last run of the event, I say: I’m going to stay on a running program, but instead I quit running and I quit working out. I just put myself into work and kids activities and all the everyday stuff. I don’t start training until around January. I usually wait until after Christmas, because I don’t want to ruin a good Christmas with exercise and healthy eating.
When you are training, how does it affect your physical and mental health?
When I was younger, there was always a team or a group to be a part of. You played on ball teams and stuff like that. Once I hit 40, that wasn’t an option. There was no goal physically or fitness wise to go for. So now this gives me a little bit of purpose when I’m working out and has made my health better.
This run is the ultimate mental challenge. It’s not physically as demanding as you think it is but you’re always having to mentally tell yourself: You’re OK.
Having one bad run doesn’t mean the next one’s going to feel bad. It can feel great depending on how you eat, sleep, drink and the people you’re around. When you run with another person, it kind of distracts you and takes away from whatever pain you’re feeling.
Who runs with you over the weekend?
We have quite a number of people that come out. We have anywhere from five to 20 that run with me at any time.
Two years ago was the first time I had anyone complete it with me and it was one of my boys. We have four kids and two of my older boys have been able to complete the whole run with me now. My daughter wants to run it with us, but we have to figure out how that will work while managing her diabetes.
In total, I’ve had a handful of people each of the last two years complete the run with me. Two of them are other parents of diabetics from the community who weren’t runners either but decided well, if he can do it we can do it.
This year, Chris Jarvis, the founder and executive director of I Challenge Diabetes in Toronto, is going to be coming down and running with me. He’s a Type 1 diabetic and was an Olympic rower for Canada in the 2004 Athens Olympics. So he is an actual athlete and is going to show us how he manages his diabetes during a challenge like this.
What else do you want people to know?
If you do come out and run something like this, it will probably be one of the best feelings you’ll have. It’s incredibly satisfying when you’ve completed it to have overcome something like this.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Holtvogt’s 4x4x48 challenge takes place May 30 to June 1 in Humboldt. Learn more and donate at www.t1d4x4x48.com.
