Operation Jack

Fighting autism, one mile at a time.

Archives for 2010

Weekend Preview: Home Game!

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It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for a weekend preview. I’m going with a different format than I typically do, because I’m not having a contest and I have a few random things I want to talk about. I hope you guys are OK with the way I wrote this.

Normally on Thursdays, I talk about my weekend race and I have a fundraising contest. I didn’t have the contest last week and I’m not having it again this week. The reason is I want to re-focus the way I do a couple of things. I have a new concept I want to promote, but I’m still refining it so I’m just going to hang loose for a week or two.

For now, the best way I can ask you to help is to spread the word. I’ve been focused on fundraising for a little while, but I really want to get working on spreading the word. I know that a lot of you read this, but I want to bring in some new folks. Think about people you know who are impacted by autism. You all know somebody. Just tell one new person about Operation Jack this weekend and get them to the site. I’m running my 37th marathon of the year on Saturday to do my part. All I need you to do is tell one new person!

If you’re here for the first time and you’re impacted by autism somehow, please send me an e-mail because I want to tell you how Train 4 Autism can help you make a difference! Also, click here to see why I’m running 61 full marathons this year.

Anyways, moving on to this weekend’s race, it’s No. 2 in the three-race Train 4 Autism series I’m putting on with local race promoter Charlie Alewine. I’m really excited about this race. Not only will there be a fair amount of people there that I know in a fun, low-key race, but I DON’T HAVE TO TRAVEL! I’ll be home and on my weekend by noon on Saturday. I love it!

The race itself is a flat, loop course in Long Beach, Calif. I didn’t realize until yesterday that last week’s race started above 3,800 feet and climbed past 4,250 on those gravel roads. This week’s flat course at sea level should be a big breath of fresh air. Actually, it’ll be a big breath of oxygen, which will be nice. I’ll go out and run my best and I won’t worry about the race afterwards, no matter how I do.

Forget about the racee, though. The best parts of my weekend will be Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.

On Saturday night, me and Tiff are going down to San Diego to watch Trace Adkins and Toby Keith. We’ve already seen Toby Keith, and even if we hadn’t, I’d be more excited about Trace Adkins. Tiff is more excited about Toby Keith and I’ll enjoy watching him, too.

On Sunday afternoon, the whole family is getting together to celebrate my grandpa’s 87th birthday. The awesome thing is that it’s going to be right around the corner from my house, because my grandparents moved into their new assisted-living facility on Tuesday. They used to live 45 minutes away, but now they’re just five minutes from my work and 15 from my house.

It took until yesterday at 11:59 a.m. for them to call me for a favor and I happily obliged. This is like a really cool treat in the middle of a hot summer. Speaking of really cool treats, I stopped by yesterday for lunch and in their dining center, they have a menu my grandparents can order off of. My grandma had a tuna sandwich on wheat bread. My grandpa? All he wanted was ice cream.

I guess that’s where I get it from.

So anyways, before we can get to this weekend, we have to get through today. Jack is going to the dentist and he has to be sedated. We’re extremely nervous about this, although I know he’ll be fine. Ahhh, the joys of children who can’t communicate. Another downside of autism. I hate what Jack goes through and that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing this year. I want to make it better for other kids. He’s getting robbed of his childhood.

Well, I don’t have much else to talk about today. I probably do, but I wrote this last night and I was too tired to think so I had to call it quits. Have a great weekend, everybody. I’ll post a race report on Saturday. Let me know what you think of me rambling on like this. Is it OK?

Guest Blog: Rallying The Troops

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Today I have a guest post from Operation Jack supporter Roy Naim. Roy asked a few weeks ago if he could submit a guest blog and I have no problem with that. So, today I’m running what he wrote.

Real quick, just in case you’ve never been here, click here to see why I’m running 61 marathons this year to try to raise money and awareness for Train 4 Autism.

Now, here’s what Roy wrote (follow Roy on Twitter at @roynaim).
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Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior.

Autism effects 1 in 150 children in the United States.

Autism has no cure that is known.

What does this all mean? Often I see different medical words and diagnoses and I wonder, does this really mean anything to me? Is it really just another one? Is it just something that we are sympathetic for and say “oh man”?

Often it is “something” we just throw money at and hope we don’t hear about it again. And if we do hear about it again or know someone who has “something”, at times we tend to separate ourselves and try not to know what is really going on. There are MANY who do their part to help those who they know are affected somehow by any illness. Sadly, however, there are those who try to run the other way.

Individually, I decided to change that. I no longer just wanted to just sympathize with these families. I wanted to see what they are going through. I wanted to see how it changes their lives. I wanted to see why people are afraid of getting involved and helping out. I wanted to help out and try to be closer to empathizing with them.

Me and a few close friends started to volunteer at the hospitals and get to know these families. We started becoming a member of the families. The kids knew us. The families invited us into their homes. We laughed. We cried. We took them out for dinner, often drawing funny looks from others. We learned about feeding tubes. We pushed wheelchairs. We gave shots. In a way, we became big brothers. We learned more about these kids and their diseases and at the same time our lives changed.

We saw parents staying up all night to tend to their child. We saw how this affected the other siblings at home and at school. We saw how people tend to give them the “pity look” when they were out with the family when they just wanted to be a normal family.

They don’t want pity. They don’t want sympathy. They just want normal. Something that they may never have and this is why many try to stay away from them. They don’t want to be associated with non-normal families.

However, this was our job. We tried to make everything seem normal. We tried to take these special kids and give them a normal time. We took them on roller coasters, we did arts and crafts activities and we just talked like friends typically do. We took their siblings out and gave them much-needed attention. We tried to make living with the illness normal as possible.

I will never forget this little girl, a daughter of the medical director at the time, as she played with her little doll and stuck a G-Tube in it. Her father did such a great job in not discriminating against those with disabilities that his own kid felt it was normal. The kids and the families don’t want to be discriminated. They want to feel like they’re part of society.

Though many are volunteering across the country to help out in these situation, some want to do something more.

I was once 360lbs. A full circle. And to be honest about it, though I always acted like it fun to be fat (I got to sit in the front of the car every single time), I knew something had to change. This is when a mother of one of these children came over to me and talked to me about participating in a marathon to raise money for the organization that had helped them throughout the years. I started laughing at them. Why don’t I just give you the money? Why run for it? What is the point? Well, long story short, I ran for it.

And then I understood. There is something special when someone marches or runs for a cause. When someone parades through town screaming the “Red coats are coming” it rallies up the troops. It is not just about the money. It is about the cause. The awareness. It is about making people realize there is something out there. It is to show people that Autism is not just another word but rather something very real.

What Sam is doing here, though quite challenging and extraordinary, is something that has been done throughout history. Not the running part but the rallying. Whether it was to rally to fight the red coats, whether it was to blow the vuvuzela (I am suffering from post world cup withdrawal) to rally up the troops in African countries and scare their opponents away … the run is a battle cry. The run is a form of rallying. And this run is to rally for Autism.

Though Tiffany a few weeks ago what is it like to have a child who is autistic, we will never truly understand. So I ask of you, what are you going to do for it? Will you let autism be another word for you? Will you just throw money at it? Or will you stand up and rally for it? Take your time to learn more about it and maybe even volunteer somewhere for it. Doesn’t have to be autism per se, anything will do. It will open you eyes. It will open your heart.

So, let’s look up the word Autism. Is it just a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior OR will it mean something more? Will it be something you are rallying for?

And the next time you see someone running for a cause, it is not just about the fundraising, they are rallying up the troops.

Weekend Recap: Work And Pictures

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I need to remember to use my camera more. When I do that, I can write my blog with more pictures and fewer words. There’s going to be some words in this weekend recap. But I have 13 pictures, too. I like pictures — they’re easy to read!

Real quick, if this is your first time here, click here and see why I’m trying to run 61 marathons for Train 4 Autism this year.

The Most Common Question I Get
Do you work?

Yeah, I work full time. I’ve missed maybe 10 days or so of work this year, all for travel. I haven’t taken a sick day or a personal day or anything like that. The only days I’m missing are when I have to travel on a Friday. Well, I missed the Monday for Boston, but I was in the next day, and I missed a day when I missed a flight and got stuck in Spokane.

But I can do my entire job anywhere as long as I have a computer, and I always have a computer with me, so I squeeze in some bonus time pretty frequently. Why am I telling you this? Because this weekend was ridiculous! Here’s a quick blow-by-blow of Friday and Saturday. I had a deadline Saturday night.

My “weekend” started super early on Friday morning. Up at 3 to catch my flight at 6 a.m. out of Los Angeles. There was a slowdown getting through security and I almost missed my flight, walking directly from security onto the plane without slowing down a step. On my first flight, I worked on the plane. Yay laptops. I had a layover of about 90 minutes and I powered away some more while I waited in San Francisco.

On that second flight, I was at it some more. I got to my destination, Missoula, Montana, but I had to wait 3 1/2 hours to pick up my rental car (once you go over 24 hours, you get charged for a second day. So I sat by the baggage claim and kept on working. When I got my car, I grabbed some pancakes, drove 165 miles to the town I was staying in, Choteau, then picked up my race stuff, checked into my motel and got to work after I spent 10 minutes getting everything ready for my race the next day.

I called it quits at 9:30, because I had to get up at 3:45 the next morning. After I got up and got ready for the race, I squeezed in another hour. After the race, I showered, hit the road, stopped for lunch, then spent a couple of hours waiting at the airport. I was productive during that time, of course, and on that first flight, I finished my project.

During my 90-minute layover in Seattle, I plugged in, uploaded files onto a development site, ran some tests and everything was ready to go. On the flight from Seattle to Los Angeles, I spent about an hour making some last-minute changes, then took a break and spent about 30 minutes writing my race report.

After landing and getting my car, I drove an hour to get home, walked in the house at 12:30 a.m., made myself a turkey sandwich and spent about 30 minutes uploading the project and making sure everything was fine. I checked my email at about 8 a.m., saw that there were some issues, then went downstairs and spent 45 minutes polishing things up. Finally, I got to relax, enjoy breakfast with my family, and then I was off for the rest of the day Sunday!

So yeah, I work. I think there was a marathon in the middle of all that, too.

After Two Exhausting Days, At Least I Had A Nice Family Day
I went to the Angels-Rangers game with my dad and my 9-year-old son Benjamin on Sunday. It was a great pitching matchup, Cliff Lee vs. Jered Weaver, plus they have something where kids get to run the bases after the game. Benjamin had a blast with that. Oh, and we stopped at In-N-Out on the way to the game. That made me happy!

After the game, I went to visit my grandparents at their house. They’ve been there since 1968, which was way before I was born, so that’s always been where I’ve gone to see them. They’re moving into an assisted living facility today, and I’m pretty excited about that, because they’re going to have a much better quality of life, plus they’re going to be five minutes from my work and 15 minutes from house. Their house they’re moving out of is 45 minutes away, so it’s tough for me to see them frequently.

While I’m excited about that, it blows my mind that they’re moving out of their house after 42 years. I went up after the game to see it for one last time. I got to visit with them too, which was nice. But I just can’t believe I’m never going back there. There have been countless family gatherings there, I used to spend the night when I was a kid … when I think of them, I think of that house. But amazingly, it’s just a memory now. Life goes on, I guess.

But anyways, the ballgame and seeing my grandparents really made for a great day.

So that’s all from my weekend. Here are the pics!


My view of the world for 3 1/2 hours in the airport in Missoula.

I ate five of these on Friday afternoon and got pretty full.

Montana is my kind of place.

This is Main Avenue in Choteau, Montana. Definitely a small town.

I saw an actual log cabin in Augusta, Montana. That’s a big deal to a California native.

This was also in Augusta. They don’t have a lot of taxidermy storefronts where I live. Actually, they don’t have any. So I had to take a picture.

I don’t think they have a lot of imports on tap in this bar in Augusta.

I ate in Lincoln, Montana, where they caught the Unabomber. I had to take a picture of the menu.

This was the cheeseburger and the sweet potato fries I got in Lincoln. This place I ate at in Lincoln on Saturday, Pit Stop, came highly recommended, but I’d just call it so-so.

This was my lunch at In-N-Out the next day. Certainly better than so-so!

Me and Benjamin at the game.

Grandma’s & Grandpa’s house. I don’t need this picture because I’ll never forget it.

It’s my blog, so I can put a picture of my grandpa in his kitchen in here if I want to!

That’s all for today … have a great Tuesday!

Nothing Beats A Good Kick In The Butt

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I struggled with a rough race on Saturday, but I got a nice attitude adjustment yesterday when I desperately needed it. Normally on Mondays, I write a weekend recap filled with bad jokes. But today, I want to address some things I put in my race recap from this weekend. There were some things I want to cover from this weekend, so I’ll definitely write about that tomorrow.

In my race recap from this weekend, I complained about my time and the way I’m running. I’m struggling physically and even more than that, I’m struggling mentally.

In all of this Operation Jack stuff, I really have no clue what I’m doing with all of this. I just move forward on a daily basis, living somewhat in a vacuum. I came up with this idea of running all these marathons, but I’m not sure what to do with it. I don’t know the exact expression — something like the whole is greater than the sum of all parts — but I know the 61 is more important than any individual race. I’m competitive with myself and I dwell on my race times, and that continued again this weekend.

Now, I know it’s important to go out and give it my all every time. I owe that. But the results will be what they will be and as long as I give it my best, then I’m doing the best I can. I was pretty bitter after Saturday’s run, though, and that came through in my race report.

A good friend of mine called me up yesterday morning and chatted with me for a while after he read what I wrote. He wasn’t trying to give me a pep talk, because that’s not what I need. He was trying to help me get some perspective. He told me that some of the favorite race reports of mine he’s read are the ones where I’m an official pacer. In those, I’m helping other people achieve their goals and I’m having a completely positive experience.

He reminded me to keep my focus where it needs to be. When I started this, I knew the point of this is to help Train 4 Autism grow. It’s not about my running, because nobody really cares if my legs got sore at mile 18. Plus, while I run fairly well, I’m nowhere near spectacular or truly fast and I never will be. I took a chance that by doing something that most people would think is crazy, I could at least get them to listen to my message.

As you all know, is that I hate how my 6 1/2-year-old son Jack is severely autistic and struggles with that and I want to make a difference in his honor. I want to make things better for people. I don’t know exactly what or how, but I want to make things better. Ideally, I could somehow help tons and tons of people. Even if I just help one or two, that’s still one or two lives I made better. I know I say this all the time, but I need to remember that my goal this year is building up a charity, not lowering down my marathon times.

So that call from him came at a great time. I really needed a pick-me-up and I got it. Then, about an hour after I talked to him, I got a comment on my race report from somebody I met through him. She wrote, in part,

… I wasn’t going to share this with you ever, but today seems appropriate for it. I was a long time smoker, I mean nobody did it better than me … Seriously, I could have made a career out of it. I had tried countless times to stop, but always “gave up”. The last time I quit was after reading something you wrote. Honestly I have no idea what it was, but I remember thinking how far you had come from when we couldn’t even walk up the stairs to [our friends’] place on moving day. I thought if he can do it, I can too. I kept your picture (the black and white of you looking over your shoulder running) as my desktop wallpaper for months and looked at it every time I wanted to give up.I am still smoke free, eat healthy and am back to my daily exercise ways. So Mr. Ordinary,you may have saved my life, stop your bitching 😉

I met her years ago, and she’s very good friends with my friend and his wife, but I only started communicating with her a month ago or so. So she’s been following along with Operation Jack and using me as inspiration for a while now and I had no idea. When I realized that, it was pretty clear to me. It’s not about what Operation Jack is doing for me. It’s about what Operation Jack is doing for others. It feels a whole lot better to read something like that than it does to run a 3:10.

When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is check my messages (email, text, Twitter) to see what communications came my direction while I was sleeping. This morning, the first thing I saw on Twitter, which was actually just a general message to everybody from somebody I communicate with, was “If I change just one life for the better, I’ve done my job.”

So, I get the picture. I’m doing my job, imperfectly like any human would. It was nice to get that kick in the butt yesterday and that reminder this morning. I’m where I’m supposed to be. I just need to do what I’m supposed to do.

Race Report: Grizzly Marathon

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It’s getting tough to write race reports lately. I find it difficult to find positives in my declining performance, but at the same time, nobody is going to want to read what I have to say if it’s always bitter. I had another tough run at the Grizzly Marathon in Choteau, Montana Saturday, but I’ll regroup and give it my all again next weekend.

The Grizzly Marathon course is actually pretty challenging. It’s a pretty quick, flat start for a couple of miles, but it’s an out-and-back and about 22 of the miles are run on a gravel road. There are a lot of rolling hills, including a few nice climbs early that add to the challenge. I wouldn’t totally call it a road course, although I certainly wouldn’t call it a trail run. I’d just call it challenging. Overall, I’d say the hills were a little more challenging than San Francisco last week. The footing wasn’t terrible, but it sure wasn’t a quick asphalt track.

The weather was nice, about 60 degrees. We were exposed to the sun without shade for the entire race, but we had cloud protection for about half of the run. So, it was a challenging day, but not the most challenging day I’ve faced this year.

Normally, I’ll either go all out by heart rate from the beginning or I’ll try to keep it at a pace I know I’m physically capable of. Basically, it’s go-for-broke or try to go conservative and run a 3:10 regardless of what I could have gotten. Lately, I haven’t been able to come close to 3:10, which is incredibly frustrating. I know I ran my 36th marathon of the year on Saturday, but that doesn’t make slowing down any easier on me mentally.

So, I went out gunning for a 7:20 pace. I figured I’d just go conservative, not even try to run faster than a 3:12 pace or so, and tick off consistent splits. The pace was easy at first. Really, really easy. I was tired, having slept only about 9.5 hours the previous two nights, but I truly think I could have held onto that all day on a better course, even as beat up as I am. But when we hit those gravel roads, there were hills right away and I couldn’t hang.

I didn’t panic, because I knew I’d be getting everything back on the way in, but I wasn’t getting my legs back on the downhills on the way out. I just knew it was going to be a tough day pretty quick. I remember feeling sluggish by mile 6, which is way too early for that.

The course itself was really nice. The views were great — lots of open farmland and mountains way off in the distance. I’m not the city type — I’m pretty laid back and I like calm and open space, so the sights were extremely relaxing. For me, this was my kind of place — not much around other than a few nice people here and there. The support was pretty good, too. There were aid stations every 1.5 – 2 miles and the volunteers were pretty friendly.

Anyways, I could tell by counting runners near the turnaround that I was in fourth place, a considerable distance from third, and I could tell when I turned around that there were two or three people within a minute or so behind me. I was dragging and feeling sorry for myself because I felt so sluggish.

I started to mentally think about throwing in the towel and just going through the motions. I’m getting so sick and tired of this. I believe in what I’m doing and I really believe in the cause, but it’s so hard to do this. I’m exhausted, I’m beat up and I’m sick of always worrying about how much money I’m raising. Some people tell me I’m a machine, but I’m just a guy and I struggle to stay tough. The physical issues of this are one thing, but the mental issues are pretty demanding, too.

I was thinking about the verse at the bottom of my site a lot in the middle third of the race. I’m growing weary and I know I can’t give up. But it’s just hard right now and I still have five months of this left. I started praying for strength to get through at about mile 18, because I was really dragging physically, which was bringing me down mentally. I don’t normally pray for something like that, because I don’t think getting through a marathon is that important, but I was miserable.

Anyways, between about 14 and 18, I was leapfrogging with a guy who was a little younger than me. He took me on the uphills and I got him back on the downhills. He eventually pulled about 1,000 feet ahead of me and I was firmly back in fifth place with a runner about 50 yards behind me. There was a long downhill between around maybe 21 and 23 and I decided it was now or never if I wanted to get back into 4th. Placement like that isn’t that big of a deal in a race that only had 76 finishers, but you still want to do your best.

I passed him with authority at about 23 and did what I could to stay as strong as possible for a little while. I wanted him to lose hope of catching me and not make a late kick on me. Soon after that, I saw the third-place runner about 1/4 mile up. I kept powering to keep myself from slipping back to fifth and I started reeling in the man in third. I could tell I was going to catch him, so I set him as a target.

I went through the same thought process with him. I was passing him at around 25.5, which was kind of early to make a move like that, but I was moving well and didn’t back off. I passed him on a left turn and I could see the finish line off in the distance.

I just kept kicking as hard as I could. My shirt was flapping a little bit and I couldn’t tell if that was his footsteps or me, so I kept cruising. I was running well and felt pretty confident I had him beat, so I did the unthinkable and looked over my shoulder (well, while looking to the side — it wasn’t totally obvious). I had a football field on him with about 1/4 mile to go, so I knew I had it locked up. I went hard through the finish and went 3:35:06, good for third overall.

The time is pedestrian for me, a combination of the course and me just not having it. I’ll never know what I could have run on a different course on Saturday, but I’m not going to dwell on it. I’ll just figure out ways to adjust my training so I can start swinging my times in the right direction.

Whatever the case, Operation Jack rolls on. 36 down, 25 to go.


Look, it’s me at the finish line of a marathon!