Teacher ready for weekend challenge
She’s planning to spend next 48 hours running 4 miles every 4 hours
“Why would anyone want to do this?”
That’s what Tina Holba, a PE teacher at Shepard High School in Palos Heights, asked herself when she heard about the David Goggins 4x4x48 Challenge, which dares participants to run 4 miles every four hours for 48 hours.
On Friday night, she’ll find out firsthand.
Holba is depriving herself of sleep and taxing her body like never before this weekend to honor her mother and father, but her list of reasons extends beyond her late parents whom she lost within six months of each other just a couple of years ago.
“I had to watch that happen, and my kids watched, and my husband watched, and it wasn’t quick like a car accident, it was cancer and a stroke and complications,” she said. “I watched the struggle they had physically and then the mental thoughts of ‘I’m going to be dying,’ and then having to fight through that every day, every hour, every minute just to stay a little bit longer for their family.”
A fitness friend introduced Holba to the 4x4x48 charity running challenge, which was inspired by retired U.S. Navy SEAL David Goggins. She just made the decision to take on the challenge a few weeks ago on Feb. 18.
“I was at work when I saw the post about the challenge and I asked a co-worker how crazy is it to run 4 miles every four hours and they were just laughing and saying no,” she said. “So I did some research and kept throwing it out there. That day, half joking and half seriously looking at whether I can really do this and thinking of the why, I went home to my husband (Jim Holba, a PE teacher at Andrew High who also coaches softball at Providence and football at Sandburg) that night and said, ‘Look, this is what I’m thinking of doing.’ ”
As she perseveres through the 48 grueling hours this weekend, the Mokena resident will be thinking of her parents and thanking them for the extra time she was able to spend with them as they fought for their lives while she pushes herself through what she called “torture for your mind.”
“I’m trying to prepare for it all so that if my mind does become like scrambled eggs, like oatmeal and mush, because that’s what happens — you get mentally tired, but then physically tired which also plays a mental role,” she said. “I’m hoping not to let that emotional aspect get to me because we all know when you let too many emotions get to you, you tend to take the easy way out and I can’t do that. I have to wait until it’s done.”
Holba also hopes to raise awareness and inspire.
“I want to show my students and my own boys that it is an honor to be able to exercise, work out, even move,” said. “With sedentary lifestyles and then the coronavirus (lockdowns), we’re seeing more people overweight
and struggling with the health problems associated with it. Our bodies crave movement and need that movement to be healthy, physically and mentally.”
She’s always been a special athlete. She helped Homewood-Flossmoor win its first girls gymnastics regional in school history in 1997 before becoming a Division I gymnast at UIC. It was there that she became hooked on running by longtime coach Peter Jansson.
“He ran marathons and did the Chicago Marathon,” she said. “There was just something about the way he talked about running as a lifestyle. After gymnastics ended, two roommates and I ran the Chicago Marathon as a bucket list-type thing and I never really stopped.”
While a high school student, Holba participated in power lifting competitions with her dad as a way to spend time together and bond. Last year, she ran with her 12-year-old son. Throughout her teaching career, her students have been inspired to do the workouts she assigns because she’s already done them herself earlier in the day. It’s hip to be active if for no other reasons than to relate to the teens and for your own health and well-being, she said.
“For normal PE I’m doing the same workouts, but I’m doing it at 4:30 in the morning and I’m doing more,” she said. “So when they’re sore and complaining, I tell them that I know what you’re feeling when you’re halfway in so I’m able to relate to them. I’m double their age. I can’t relate to music with them, but I can while in the midst of doing that five-minute distance challenge.”
The funny thing is that Holba hadn’t planned on becoming a teacher. She started as an athletic training undergrad, earned her master’s degree in sports psychology and was just beginning a doctorate in clinical psychology when she had a change of heart in more ways than one, as she also met her husband.
“I took one Ph.D. class and said, ‘absolutely not,’ ” she laughed. “I was the athletic trainer over at Joliet West (and Joliet Central), and contracted through Provena St. Joseph, and my husband was a teacher at Joliet West. He saw me working with kids and said teaching is something I should look into.”
Now she’s going to raise funds to help someone like her who wishes to become a PE teacher and lead a healthy, active lifestyle with a scholarship through the Friends of Community High School District 218 Education Foundation.
“It will reward those who are trying to do something about the many health problems caused by sedentary lifestyles,” she said. “I’m so happy the school is behind me in setting up a fund where anything anyone donates will go straight to the student.”
While sleep, rest and recovery are up next for Holba, she’s not even considering what potential challenges she’ll thrust upon her daring self next. She’s hoping that the 4x4x48 gets added to an impressive bucket list that already includes bungee jumping, skydiving, triathlons, the aforementioned marathon and more. Next month she plans on running the Virtual Women’s Half Marathon, which she had been training for prior to her decision to take on the 4x4x48 Challenge.
“I haven’t thought too far ahead,” she said. “But then again all this came together very fast.”
Information on donating to the scholarship fund is at www.chsd218.org/apps/pages/EducationFoundationDonation.