Operation Jack

Fighting autism, one mile at a time.

Archives for 2010

Quick Announcement For Thursday

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OK, so I don’t really have the most exciting blog I’ve ever written for today, but I do have something quick I need to get across to y’all.

I know, it’s the Chase Community Giving contest I’ve been talking about a lot in the past week or so. It’s coming down to the wire (it ends Monday night), and the top 200 vote-getting charities in this contest will receive $20,000. We’ve bounced around between #155 and #200 this week, so voting is tight and the standings are volatile. We’re not the only group trying to get out the vote — that’s for sure! It’s an easy contest — you can only vote once, so it’s not one of those things where you have to vote every day from every browser on every one of your computers.

Anyways, I created something that I think is a pretty easy tool for you to use. It’s going to take you maybe a minute and it’s really going to help. Here’s what you do:

1. Think of three friends who would vote for us and GO TO THIS PAGE and enter their e-mail address in the form and they’ll receive an automated email asking them to vote.

2. If you haven’t voted, VOTE!. If you’ve already voted, skip this step. You can’t vote twice!

3. Share on Facebook and Twitter.

And that’s it. Those three steps will make a huge difference. For bonus points, do step #1 twice and that should take care of really igniting a fire that will keep us in the top 200!

Sorry to keep bugging about this, but it’s such a big opportunity and we’re so close … I really can’t let this slip away!

I’ll be back here tomorrow with my standard weekend preview blog. Have a great rest of your Thursday!

10 Random Things For Wednesday

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I love holidays. I’ve only put in eight hours at the office so far this week and it’s already Wednesday! Wait … I’ve only put in eight hours at the office so far this week and I have to start carb loading again tomorrow. Hmmm, that’s no bargain. Oh well, my weekend recap was yesterday, which means today is time for 10 random things.

Just in case this is your first time here, I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, 6 1/2-year-old Jack, is severely autistic and I’m trying to make a difference in the autism world. I’m trying to run 60 marathons this year to raise money for a charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism. So far, I’m through 32 of the 60 and I’m pushing every day to raise money and bring people into the organization.

1. OK, there’s a recurring theme between now and next Monday. I NEED you to help me with this Chase Community Giving contest. 200 small charities will each win $20,000, and for Operation Jack/Train 4 Autism, that would be HUGE.

We’re so close to winning, but we’re also pretty close to not winning. This contest runs through next Monday and it seems like every charity out there is ratcheting their efforts. For $20,000, I have to do the same. So please vote (if you haven’t already), share it on Facebook and share it on Twitter!

If you have any creative ideas, please let me know! By no means do I have a monopoly on creative ways to market things through social media. Heck, I barely have a clue! Please, give me some ideas if you can! I’m begging!

2. Last weekend, I received a check for $20 as an age group award from the Fargo Marathon. Does this make me a professional athlete?


If this makes me a professional athlete, I’m probably the first pro athlete in history to donate 100% of my lifetime earnings to charity.

3. I spent four weeks on a civil jury trial in 2001. It was a boring trial. Very boring. How boring? One of my fellow jurors had diabetes and intentionally overloaded on sugar at lunch one day so that she’d have to go to the hospital and get dismissed from the jury. Her strategy worked.

4. Tomorrow I’m going to post about things Jack likes to do. I promised a follower I’d do that, so I will. Plus, I might be able to talk Tiff into helping me out with it a little bit, which will save me some time tonight. Speaking of Tiff, she’s going to guest blog here next Monday. She asked me about that last night and that’s totally fine with me — saves me from cranking something out on Sunday night!

5. I wasn’t a very good student in high school (lazy!) and almost failed accounting, which would have kept me from graduating. My dad, a CPA, wasn’t very impressed. I also almost failed art my last semester due to not turning in enough projects, but after arguing about a D vs. an F, my teacher decided to pass me because she realized an F would have landed me in her summer school class. She hated me.

6. About five or six years ago, I went to a Dave Matthews concert with a good friend of mine and we had tickets in the eighth row. While we were walking in, I told him those were the best concert tickets I’d had since I was four seats from the front at a Lionel Richie concert in 1997. He told me to not say that out loud again while we were at the show that night.

7. Only 27 more days until my grandparents move into an assisted living facility that’s less than 10 minutes from my work and less than 20 minutes from my house. I can’t wait to be able to go visit them more, although I’m going to cry like a baby when they move out of their house. They’ve been in it for more than 42 years.

8. On Saturday when I travel to Montana, I’m flying into Spokane. So, I want to run a mile in California before I leave, then a mile in Washington when I get there, then a mile in Idaho and eventually a mile in Montana. That would give me at least a mile in four different states on the same day. I’m an idiot like that.

9. The ice cream steak is up to 157 if you’re keeping track. If you are keeping track, I have one word … why?

10. Just a reminder about the Chase contest. Sorry — I can’t help it!

Have a great Wednesday everybody! I’ll see you back here tomorrow. Did I remind you to vote?

Weekend Recap: Some Bad, Mostly Good

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With three days of weekend to cover in a weekend recap blog, I could write about 10,000 words. But I’d rather let 11 pictures do most of the talking — that’s worth 11,000 words, right? I’ll still write a little bit and throw some bad jokes your way, though. Happy first day of a short week!

Real quick, just in case this is your first time here, I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, 6 1/2-year-old Jack, is severely autistic. I want to try to make a difference in the autism community, so I’m trying to run 60 marathons this year to raise money for a great charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism. So far, so good. 32 down, 28 to. I ran the Foot Traffic Flat Marathon in Portland, Oregon’s Sauvie Island on Sunday. If you want to read about what it’s like to run a marathon when you’d rather run zero miles, check out my race recap.

I Need Your Help!
As you can probably tell by the banner you hit on your way to the site today, I really, really need your help in the Chase Community Giving contest. 200 charities will receive $20,000 each and I’d really love for us to be one of those charities. It’s getting down to the wire — the contest has less than a week to go and there’s not a lot votes separating the last 50 charities in the top 200.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, if you haven’t voted, please CLICK HERE and vote! And whether or not you’ve voted, PLEASE share on Facebook and share on Twitter! If just 20 of you share it on Facebook and Twitter and bring in 15 people each, that’s probably going to put us over the top. So please, be one of those 20 people! Thank you!

My Weekend Started Off On A Down Note
I was homesick before I even left. I didn’t want to go, I wasn’t in the mood to run, and while I was gone, I heard about some fun times my wife was having with my kids. It was tough and I was having an episode of, “why did I sign up for this and is this really worth it?” again.

Last summer, a friend of mine, Jeff Cate, told me, “I have a feeling this whole Operation Jack is going to be a huge test in selflessness. You’re going to face lots of disappointment along the way (whether in marathon performances, support, etc.). But you’ll have to keep on keeping on … more so than ever before.

Be prepared to say, I don’t care if I only have 1 person supporting me (let’s say Tiff), and only $10 in support… I’m still gonna run 60 marathons because I love Jack. That alone would be worth it all.”

I think I hit that point mentally this weekend, and I’m not so sure I passed the test as well as I could have or should have. And really, I’m not fishing — I’m just letting you know how I feel. But I’m human and I’ll try better this week.

Anyways, I got to Oregon and got to go see an old college friend of mine named Stacy. I hadn’t seen her in a good 15 years, so we had a nice lunch and got to catch up. I had to drive four hours round-trip to the Oregon coast, but it was worth it. It was great to see her, plus there’s nothing quite like driving from Portland to Lincoln City. I’ve seen a lot of America this year, and Oregon is probably the most beautiful part I’ve seen.


Me and Stacy after lunch.

Oregon … it’s beautiful.

More Oregon.

I drove back and met up with a guy who’s a crazy marathon runner kind of like me named Steve Walters. He’s a nice guy and it was good to meet him. I forgot to take a picture at dinner, but we took one after the race on Sunday.


Steve has now run 88 lifetime marathons and ultramarathons. So please, don’t call me crazy.

Steve told me that Nike headquarters were less than a mile from where we had dinner. So after dinner, I cruised by and took a couple of pictures.


One Bowerman Drive. Sweet.

Something tells me Michael Jordan has been here.

After Nike and checking into the hotel, I went to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the Brock Lesnar – Shane Carwin fight. I can’t stand Lesnar and was excited to see Carwin get him in trouble in the first round. But when Lesnar got him on the ground the way he did in the second, I knew it wasn’t going to happen. Oh well.

Speaking real quick about my hotel, if you remember me talking about the fleabag motel that pretty much caused me to be sleepless in Seattle last week, well, this week was the opposite. I got a bargain on Travelocity and this room had two flatscreens, a room divider, a nice couch … too bad I only spent about 90 minutes awake in there.

Anyways, after the race on Sunday, I met up with Operation Jack supporter Katey Williamson. We played email tag, text tag and phone tag, but we finally got to meet up and chat for 15 or 20 minutes. As is the case with virtually every Operation Jack supporter I’ve met, she’s super nice.


That’s a pretty sweet sweatshirt she has on. I wonder where I can find one.

She recommended that I eat at a place called Burgerville. I guess that’s a chain local to Portland. It was decent, but In-N-Out is better (like you’d expect me to say anything else).


I took a picture of my burger. That’s how I roll.

I wanted to go to a place called Voodoo Donuts afterwards, and I actually did go, but the line was too long and I had to go to the airport. Incredible donuts are worth missing a flight for, but not if I need to take my kids to see fireworks.

So I got home before dark, nice empty flight. I had my own row! We took the kids to see fireworks. There’s a park with a pretty good view in our city that we go to and we saw about 10 shows from all the Orange County cities. It was pretty cool. But the highlight was when the sprinklers in the park went off and got us wet. We’d seen about 25 minutes of fireworks, so we took off, dashing through the park, laughing all the way! Wait, wrong holiday.

Monday I was off wok and we decided to take a family day, which was AWESOME. We went to a place called Boomers where we did go carts, miniature golf, bumper boats and all that kind of stuff. Jack went on the go carts with Tiff, but didn’t have much fun. He had a blast on the bumper boats.

I got to play golf with Ben (Ava was the caddy) with Tiff and Jack tagging along, I rode the go carts with Ben and with Ava, plus I got to do the bumper boats with Jack. It was a ton of fun. And here’s the pictures:


Me and my favorite daughter.

Tiff and Jack before the go carts.

Does this count as exercise?

Aside from Ben not smiling right and Jack looking like he’s smelling his armpits, this one turned out great.

Oh, and the best news of all … I just found out yesterday that on August 3, my grandparents are moving to an assisted living facility about 5 minutes from my work and less than 20 minutes from my house. They’re about 45 minutes away right now, so it’s tougher to see them. I’m so excited, you have no idea. Their quality of life is going to go way up, and selfishly, I’m going to be able to see them all the time.

So, my weekend started out miserably, but it ended up wonderfully. Life is good. I hope your weekend ended up as well as mine!

Happy Tuesday, y’all. I’ll have 10 random things for you tomorrow!

Race Report: Foot Traffic Flat Marathon

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Heading into Operation Jack, I knew there would come a day that I would have zero desire to run, that I’d wonder why I came up with the idea to try to run 60 marathons this year, I’d wish I was anywhere but at the start line of a marathon and I’d view my race as 26.2 miles of nothing but work. Well, Sunday was that day, and the Foot Traffic Flat Marathon on Portland, Oregon’s Suavie Island was the race.

I was homesick before I left, not in the mood to run and pretty tired. Six hours of sleep is my cutoff to function, and I didn’t get that in either of the two nights before the race. On top of that, while I was in Oregon, I heard about all sorts of fun things my wife Tiffany was doing with our three kids. That put me into a funk mentally and emotionally. I’ve reached a point where it’s been a long year, and I know I still have a ways to go.

So, I just didn’t want to run. When you’re not in the mood to run, 26.2 miles is a fairly long ways. But I have a job to do, so I went out and ran the race. I had one main goal for the race, to hit the half in between 1:34:30 and 1:35:00. I’m pacing the first half of the 3:10 group next week in Missoula, Montana, and this was my final dress rehearsal.

After the half, I had planned on cranking it up a little bit. The course was pancake flat, temperatures were in the high 50s and it was cloudy — perfect running conditions. That was the gameplan in the days leading up to the race. I really thought I was going to run a 3:09. But it’s tough for me to run a 3:09 when I don’t want to run.

Anyways, I took off planning to keep the miles in between 7:00 and 7:15 or so, the closer to 7:10 the better. 7:15 is the pace for 1:35, although I’m planning on being a tiny bit fast next week because the first half is a little easier than the second half, so I think the group will need to be about 30 seconds ahead halfway through.

I was virtually flawless for the first 11 miles. They were all between 7:01 and 7:14, and I think all but three or so were between 7:06 and 7:11. It’s fairly close to the edge of my ability, so it was a little tough, but not impossible as long as I stayed focused. I drifted off a little bit mentally in miles 12 and 13 and went 7:18 and 7:22. But when I hit halfway, 1:34:40 had elapsed. I’m pretty good with that and I’m ready for next week.

Of course, I still had 13.1 miles to go, but I was mentally checked out. The course was beautiful and I was in awe of the scenery. Suavie Island is a calm, serene island filled with nothing but farms. From what I could gather, most of the farms were berry farms. The run was just amazing, and I think I’d put the quality of scenery on this one above my three favorites so far this year — Catalina Island, Napa Valley and Charlottesville (Va.). It was that nice. I really loved it.

But like I said, I was checked out. I just wanted to be done and go home and I slowed down about 30 seconds/mile after the half. I didn’t intentionally slow down, but I don’t think my mind was letting my legs turn. My 7:15s were pretty much 7:45s the rest of the way, and I think I even had a couple of miles slower than 8:00.

I thought I was in line for something in the 3:20s, but I was surprised when I checked the elapsed time with two miles to go and it was a few seconds less than 3:02. I did quick math and figured that if I could turn two sub-7 miles I could still end up with another Boston qualifier. I tried to turn it on, but after 11 miles at 7:45ish pace, I couldn’t get it going. I ran hard, but never really kicked, because I knew with one mile to go that 3:16 was out of reach and 3:18 would have required a total collapse in the 26th mile.

I ended up finishing in somewhere around 3:17:31. I’m not sure of my official time, but I know it was a 3:17. And that was it, another marathon in the books. Operation Jack sputtered on again. 32 down, only 28 to go!


You see those bags under my eyes? I’m telling you, I was TIRED! Not even running a marathon could wake me up!

Me and friend Steve Walters after the race. Steve has the same running sickness that I do. This race gave him 88 lifetime marathons and ultramarathons.

I got to meet Operation Jack supporter Katey Williamson after the race, which was cool — she’s super nice. And you can tell from her sweatshirt that she has a pretty good sense of style.

Operation Jack: Reflections On Year 1

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Yesterday marked a year since I launched Operation Jack. I did a lot of planning in the spring of 2009, then launched this site on July 1 last year to give myself six months to build a base. It hasn’t gone exactly as I expected, but I didn’t know what to expect, so that’s to be expected. Or something like that.

Just in case this is your first time here, welcome! My name is Sam and I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, 6 1/2-year-old Jack, is severely autistic. I came up with this idea of running 60 full marathons in 2010 to raise money and awareness for a charity called Train 4 Autism. I’m kind of, sort of hitting my goals and I’m through 31 of the 60 marathons. I launched this site July 1, 2009, and since I didn’t write a blog yesterday, that’s pretty much the subject for today.

I mentally carved Operation Jack into trimesters — the first six months were to build a base, then I had the first half of this year and the second half of this year. So in a way, I’m 2/3 of the way through this. In reality, I really am. I was concerned about the running heading into this. I had never run more than 10 or 11 marathons in a year, and while I run long distances in training, races are different and I go all-out every time. But through 31 of these things, I have all the confidence in the world about things physically. That part is going well.

Everything else is a challenge. One of my followers on Twitter yesterday asked me what has been the toughest part, and no question, it’s leaving the family every weekend. I had traveled for work at my last job, and I enjoyed going on the trips and working hard, but it was only 2-3 times a year. It took about a month this year for me to start getting homesick. I hate being on the road, sitting in a motel room, knowing Tiffany is running around doing family things with the kids. I feel like I’m being punished and I’m missing time.

I knew this going in, but I didn’t realize how tough it would be until I actually started doing this. It’s easier when I leave from work to go to the airport, because it doesn’t seem like I’m leaving anybody. But when I leave from home, it’s tough. And when everybody is awake and I leave from home, it’s really tough. Tiff is getting to the point where it’s almost not that big of a deal when I leave on a trip, because it’s every … single … week. It’s hard, though, no question.

The second thing that’s the toughest is the additional work that comes with this. I write four blogs a week and a race report. That’s a huge chunk of my spare time, and typically, I’m writing on the couch at night while sort of watching TV with Tiff. It’s a non-stop cycle that never ends. I’m always on the computer and there’s very little playtime going on with that. Blogs, Twitter, emails … I do everything I can to try to spread the word about what I’m doing and it’s exhausting and never-ending. There’s basically no time to sit back and relax, other than when I eat my dinner. I certainly go to bed tired every night.

Fundraising has also been a challenge. I have zero experience in this, and I’m shy and not really comfortable asking for anything. I don’t know how to go to companies for anything, which is why I haven’t gotten any money from any companies. Even if I did know how to do it, I wouldn’t have the time! From the beginning, I’ve always said that all I want is a little bit of help from a whole lot of people, and that’s what I’ve gotten. I think we’ve raised a little more than $30,000 to this point, which is pretty good with no corporate sponsors.

So all-in-all, if I had to give myself a grades, I’d go with A for effort, C for results and as if my running matters in all this, I’d give myself a C there.

Effort-wise, my heart is in this, probably even a little too much, and I run myself into the ground trying to do everything this year. I want to spend quality time with the family, I want to do a good job at work and I want to squeeze everything I can out of Operation Jack, because it truly is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a difference like this. I’m putting my body on the line to try to make something happen for charity, and this really isn’t something I can do twice. Like a good marathon, I have no doubt I’m leaving it all out there, and while I might regret the way certain things worked out when all is said and done, I’ll have no regrets about laying it all on the line.

Results-wise, I’m not doing as well as I hoped. I really wanted to see things explode over the course of the year, and I’ve known that the last half of the year would be the best. But I’m impatient and I want to see things explode now. I know I’m planting seeds and making progress and it’s a lengthy process. I’m optimistic that Train 4 Autism will continue to benefit from what I’ve done more and more every year. I wanted to bring in more people than I have, but I’ve brought in some quality people, which is why I’m in this. I don’t want to name names, because I might leave some out, but everybody who participates knows how much I appreciate it and I know that if not for Operation Jack, they wouldn’t have found Train 4 Autism. That’s why I do this.

Running-wise, I give myself a C. A lot of you would be happy to average a 3:20 for 31 marathons through June, but I’m disappointed with about half of my races. I expect more out of myself than the way I’ve run. I’d love to chip away and get that average down closer to 3:15 for the course of the year. We’ll see. It’s tough to get motivated sometimes, but when I run, I know those times are forever and I give it everything I’ve got.

So, six more months and Operation Jack is going to finally be done. It will be nice to spend a weekend at home and not have to get up at 4 a.m. in a different time zone to run a marathon. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be depressed at first, but I can’t go on running marathons every weekend for the rest of my life. I’m still going to try to do something next year, though. I’m building a platform of people who want to make a difference in the autism world and there’s no reason to destroy that platform just because the calendar turns to 2011. I owe it to myself for all the work I’ve put in to keep it going, and I owe it to Jack, because the reason I’m doing this is so that he can make a difference in the world.

I don’t know what I’m going to do, but it’s going to be something. I know I’m going to Maine and I’m pretty sure I’m going to Utah. I’m also going to be running the Los Angeles Marathon — Train 4 Autism was selected as an official charity and I’m going to work on building a team for that race. I’m super-excited about that one, especially because it’s going to be a big Train 4 Autism race, not just Operation Jack, though.

I don’t know what else I’m going to do, though.

So I guess that’s the first year summed up in a lengthy blog. If I summed it up in a word, it would be “exhausting,” but I feel pretty blessed to be on this path. It’s been an amazing experience.

Anyways, real quick, two things:
1. If you’re familiar with my weekly contest, Scott Yerbic won last week. The contest is you guess my time in my race with a donation (if you think I’m going to run a 3:15, you donate $3.15). I’ll just sum up Portland this weekend by saying it’s flat and I’m aiming for a 1:35:00 first half to practice for pacing next weekend. I’m going to try to hang on and then go hard late. If I was betting, I’d go with $3.11. But I think I’m going to run a 3:09. To participate, click on the “Donate Now” link at the top of any page on the site.

2. I need your help in the Chase Community Giving contest! I need 15 seconds of your time if you have a Facebook account. Just click here, vote for the Operation Jack Autism Foundation, then use their “share” feature to share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter. We’re legitimately in the running for $20,000 and I REALLY, REALLY need your help!

OK, that’s all for today. Have a safe weekend, everybody!