Archives for 2010

10 Random Things For Wednesday

June 30, 2010 by operationjack 4 Comments

I normally write 10 random things for Tuesday, although really, I’ve been pretty out of my weekly routine lately and writing my “random things” column on Wednesdays. And that’s the case again this week. It’s Wednesday, time for 10 random things for Tuesday. Or something like that.

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. To try to make a difference in the autism world in his honor, I’m trying to take advantage of my ability to recover well from marathons by running 60 marathons this year to raise money and awareness for a charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism. So far, so good. I’m reaching people and raising money and I’m through 31 of the 60 marathons.

With that being said, here’s my 10 random things for … today.

1. We’re a part of a contest on Facebook called Chase Community Giving. Chase is giving out at least $20,000 to 200 different small charities and we’re somewhere around No. 130 or so. So, if you haven’t voted yet, I need you to vote! You can only vote once, so it’s super easy. If you haven’t voted, PLEASE CLICK HERE and vote! It’s a simple contest and you can vote once and once only using your Facebook account. Your vote makes a huge difference, so please do it and use their features to easily share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter!

If you’ve already voted, I certainly wouldn’t complain if you took a minute to click that link in the previous paragraph and re-share it with your friends!

2. I blogged about this yesterday, but a friend of mine named Jonathan Gunderson is an amazing distance runner — he’s completed the Bandwater Ultramarathon four times, including an 11th-place finish last year. He competed in the Western States 100 this past weekend, one of the most prestigious trail races in the country.

One of the most common lofty goals that participants aim for is a sub-24-hour finish. It’s a tough course and weather is always a problem. A sub-24 gets you a silver belt buckle, but Jonathan set his sights higher than that. He was aiming for somewhere around 19 hours and possibly a top-10 finish if all went well.

Unfortunately, he severely sprained his ankle 10 miles into the run and he battled nausea for the majority of the race. He still worked his way to a 23:47 to get the belt buckle. So yes, he ran 90 MILES of the Western States 100 with a severely sprained ankle and still nailed the sub-24. Amazing, just like his character. He’s a great guy and he works tirelessly to raise money to build wells in Uganda.

So, I’m asking, PLEASE, take a look at his site. He’s awesome and deserves a visit!

3. This is why I’m doing what I’m doing … this right here came from nothing the other day and the kids had to leave the park early.

Not only is it sad what Jack goes through, but it has an impact on the rest of the family. And we’re just one of a ton of families dealing with this.

We deal with meltdowns out of the blue on a daily basis. We keep fighting to do what we can for Jack, and I’m still holding out hope that he’ll mainstream. But the reality is that he’s not going to have the same childhood as a typical kid. I’m trying to help Train 4 Autism increase people’s ability to raise funds for autism-related charities. I’ll never really see where the money goes, nor will I know exactly what the impact is.

But I have faith that somewhere, someday, 10 kids like Jack will somehow have better days as a result of the charities that are the recipients of the money raised through Train 4 Autism. That makes it worth it, no question.

4. Sometimes my 4 1/2-year-old daughter Ava misbehaves. She knows that’s called being a troublemaker. Last night, when I tucked her into bed, she told me, “Daddy, I was a goodmaker today!” Ahhh, kids. They say the darndest things!

5. I don’t care if Stephen Strasburg has only made five major-league starts. I think he should play in the All Star Game. The game is for the fans and I want to see him throw two innings against the best the American League has to offer.

6. One of my wife’s best friends just gave birth and she’s going out of town to visit her from July 12 – 14. It’s going to be me and the three short people along with quite a bit of help from my mother-in-law. A lot of you say nice things about me as a dad. Please reserve any future comment until July 15.

7. I went to Kansas State University, one of the 10 members of the Big XII Conference. I have followers from two of our conference rivals, the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri, who are starting up Operation Jack fundraising teams and talking smack about who’s going to win their competition. Well the answer, of course, is Operation Jack and Train 4 Autism. But I think I’m going to recruit K-Staters into the mix. I just need to figure out a good competition to give people incentive to participate. It probably boils down to me humiliating myself, but for charity, I’ll do almost anything. Almost.

8. My ice cream streak is up to 150 days now thanks to a bowl of peanut butter fudge swirl with s’mores flavored Magic Shell last night. I know you were wondering.

9. My streak of consecutive days eating at In-N-Out is at one through yesterday. My streak of not eating at In-N-Out was 16 consecutive days heading into yesterday. I know, incredibly sad.

10. That Chase contest I mentioned in item No. 1 is a really big deal to Operation Jack, so I’m using two items to cover it. PLEASE vote and spread the word!

OK, that’s all for today! Get over that hump and I’ll see you tomorrow!

A Charity Runner Who Completed An AMAZING Feat!

June 29, 2010 by operationjack 3 Comments

Normally, I use my blog to promote my cause and my charity, but today, I’m going to use my space to promote another charity runner who did something amazing this past weekend. Well, don’t get me wrong — I still have some things I need to promote. But I really want you to read this today to read about an incredible runner.

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 decided I wanted to try to use my running to make a difference in the autism world, so this year, I’m trying to run 60 marathons to raise money and awareness for a charity called Train 4 Autism. So far, so good. 31 down, 29 to go.

Gotta Plug The Chase Contest
First things first, we’re in the running in the Chase Community Giving contest. This is an easy way for the Operation Jack Autism Foundation to earn $20,000 (which will essentially be $20,000 for Train 4 Autism). It’s a simple voting contest through Facebook. All you need to do is click here to go to the page and vote. If you’ve already voted, please go back to the page and click the link share it on your wall or through Twitter.

We’re hanging on in the top 140 or so, and we need to stay in the top 200, but we need to keep fighting to make this. So, thank you for your help!

Here’s A Runner Who Really Did Something Awesome This Weekend
I know what I’m doing with my running this year seems abnormal to most of you, but I have a running friend named Jonathan Gunderson who blows my mind with his endurance ability. He’s a four-time finisher of the Badwater Ultramarathon, a 135-mile race in the middle of July in Death Valley, Calif. The race starts at 282 feet below sea level and climbs up to Mt. Whitney. Temps climb well over 120 degrees! It’s the toughest footrace in America, no question. Anyways, like I said, he’s finished it four times (I think it’s four), including 11th overall last year.

This weekend, he ran in the Western States 100, one of the toughest trail races in the country and arguably the most prestigious. The goal everybody chases there is a sub-24 hour finish. If you do that, you earn the coveted Western States 100 belt buckle. Jonathan set his sights well beyond that, though. He put everything he had into training for this race and was ready to push for a sub-19 and maybe even a top 10. His training went well, his tune-up races (50- and 100-milers) went well and he was ready to go.

However, he suffered a severely sprained ankle just 10 miles into the race on Saturday. He also battled nausea for the majority of the race. He couldn’t get into the top 10 on the sprained ankle, but he was still able to finish in 23:47 and earn the belt buckle. Just to repeat, he ran 90 MILES ON TRAILS on a severely sprained ankle and still finished Western States in less than 24 hours! If that’s not tough, I don’t know what is!

Normally, I promote my own cause on my blog, but today I really want to promote his. He’s a charity runner who raises money to build wells in Uganda and he has amazing character. Please, please, please, take a look at his site today.

Brief Seattle Recap
OK, so we’re closer to this coming Friday than last Friday, but what the heck … I have pictures to post, so I’ll be real brief. I met up with some runner friends of mine I’ve known for a few years, Emil and Ryan. If you guys think I’m nuts, I’d like you to know that Ryan ran a 100-miler two weeks ago. That’s nuts. I’m just a little on the unusual side.

From there, I got to meet Operation Jack supporter Melissa Gillespie. I’ve talked with her for the better part of the past year and it was great to finally meet her. I got to try out my bad sense of humor on her, too. She had to drive something like 76 miles with her kids to visit me. We were texting back and forth a little bit and at one point, she was stuck in traffic and she texted me to tell me she was in Tacoma. So I texted her a simple question:

Tacoma? Isn’t that in Washington?

Oh, I make myself laugh. But nobody else. I immediately followed up and let her off the hook. She made it up and I hung out with her and her kids for a few hours. Later on, I met up with somebody named Lindsey Judd (and her husband Patrick) who I’ve talked to a fair amount through Operation Jack but never met. Well, I guess I have now. I’m a ding-dong and I totally forgot to take a picture, though. We had dinner and I had a reuben sandwich. I took advantage of being away from Tiff and picked up some sauerkraut breath. I love that stuff, but she hates the way it smells. Yay for toothpaste!

My motel was terrible. I’ve stayed in some dives this year, but I think this one takes the cake. It smelled like there 20 ashtrays in there, there were stains on the tub, I was scared to take my socks off, the people in the room above me had a party all night and I’m sure somebody was making meth in one of the rooms. I think it cost something like $30 or $40 to add it on to my flight on Travelocity. I survived, so I guess that’s all that matters.

This one turned out kind of funky because Ryan was standing closer to me than Emil. Oh well.

Me, Melissa and her son Callum. Well, if you’re going right-to-left.

I think the “weekly rates” sign was the first indicator it wasn’t a five-star joint.

I Conducted An Experiment For You!
Have you ever thought about running a marathon, spending 30 minutes decompressing afterwards, then taking a 30 minute subway ride followed by running 3 miles up and down rolling hills while carrying your gear check bag so you can get to your motel in time to shower and get to the airport? Yeah, I did that on Saturday. In case you were thinking about doing something similar, I can safely say I don’t recommend that three mile run at the end.

Is There A Cure For The Summertime Blues?
I don’t normally get “summertime blues,” but I can sense them coming on this year. I’m grinding through this year, everything slows down in the summer when school is out, I have a bunch of warm marathons coming up, my body is starting to feel the wear and tear of it all, plus I still have a long ways to go.

I don’t know … maybe it’s because I haven’t been to In-N-Out for 17 days.

OK, That’s All I Have Today
Not the most fascinating blog ever. But they can’t all be the most fascinating blog ever, right? See you back here tomorrow!

Halfway To 18 … Really?

June 28, 2010 by operationjack 4 Comments

I was going to write my standard weekly recap for Monday, since it’s Monday, but for reasons that I’ll explain, I had to stray from that for today. I have some nuggets from the weekend for tomorrow. Today, I’m going to be talking a little bit about my son Benjamin’s birthday. He turned 9 yesterday and we had a great day, which is going to be the subject of today’s blog.

But first, 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. So, I’m trying to run 60 marathons this year to raise money and awareness for a charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism. So far, so good. I’m through 31 of 60 marathons, I’m reaching people, I’m raising money … we’ll see how it all works out, but all I can do is try, right? And I’m trying.

On Saturday, marathon No. 31 of the year was the Seattle Rock ‘N Roll Marathon. I was pretty happy with how the race turned out. I posted a race report here, although I don’t think it’s too interesting to read, because it’s a fairly technical report of how I executed a race according to plan. If you’re not a runner, you’ll scan over it in about 20 seconds. If you are a runner, you’ll probably do the same.

I Really, Really, Really Need Your Help!!!
There’s a contest sponsored by Chase called Chase Community Giving. They’re going to give $20,000 to 200 small charities. The recipients will be the charities that receive the most votes in the contest on Facebook. You can only vote once, so it’s not a “vote early, vote often” thing. You just need to vote once and encourage your friends on Facebook to do the same.

We’re currently in 130th place, so we’re in the running still, but we’re slowly slipping. When I wrote this last night, we only had 365 votes. So I know we have a ton of votes we can capture. If you haven’t voted, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE HEAD OVER HERE and vote. And even if you have, please head over there to re-post it on your wall or send it out via Twitter (or both). If you ever can’t find the address, it’s in the Chase button at the top left of every page on this site.

I know you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t believe in the cause. This is a really good way to raise a large amount of money and it won’t cost any of us a nickel. So PLEASE, make sure you vote and spread the word! Let’s get 200 votes today!

On To Benjamin …
I can’t believe he’s already 9! Halfway to 18? It blows my mind how fast time flies. I don’t even want to think about the fact that he’s going to be a teenager in four years.

Anyways, his birthday really started on Saturday night in our house. His actual birthday was yesterday, but we had some friends over for a sleepover party Saturday night. After my race on Saturday, I basically went straight to my motel, checked out within 20 minutes and then went straight to the airport. Side note: I didn’t have a rental car, so the three-mile run from the rail station to my motel while carrying my gear-check bag after the marathon … yeah, it wasn’t fun.

Anyways, my flight landed, I stopped off to pick up pizza for the kids on the way home and I walked through the door about 10 minutes before the first of Benjamin’s friends arrived. Perfect timing! From then, it was nothing but that, “Ahhhh, life is good” feeling through the end of Sunday.

Benjamin wanted the sleepover party for his birthday for the past year, so when I set up my schedule, there was no question I’d be running a race that would have me home in time. He had an absolute blast, which was awesome. He had a tough year in school with some of the kids in his class, so it was so wonderful emotionally for me and Tiff to see him have has much fun as he did during his party. They ate pizza, cake, had an ice cream bar, ran themselves ragged playing ball in the back yard, played against each other with their DS game systems, watched a movie, stayed up being silly until 11:30 p.m. and then woke up being silly at 7 a.m. before feasting on donuts for breakfast.

Benjamin had an absolute blast, which pretty much made my month. He’s a good kid and he deserved it. We had family over yesterday and it was nice to see everybody. He had a great time at his party and he didn’t get in any trouble for anything and he didn’t have to do any chores. One of his gifts was a Monopoly game and we started a game (just me and him) at about 7 p.m. It was his birthday, and I let his bedtime slide and we played until the game was done at about 9:45. That’s why there’s no weekend recap today. I allocate at least an hour or so for those and I wanted to get some sleep.

So all-in-all, he had a perfect day, which makes me happier than I can really explain in writing. I won the game — he had two monopolies with hotels, but I had the reds on the back row (Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky) and built hotels and gradually put him out of business. I won the game, but he had a great time and I’m glad I put my weekend blog off for a day.

Oh, one side note: I picked up some flowers for Tiff yesterday. I know it’s Benjamin’s birthday, but it’s still the day that she gave birth to him. She deserves the flowers, so she gets them on each of the kids’ birthdays. Yeah, she’s special to me like that!

OK, here’s some pictures … have a great Monday!

Proud mama, proud papa, birthday boy.

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Me and Tiff in our aprons before everybody arrived for Ben’s birthday barbecue with the relatives. Yes, that’s a sweet In-N-Out apron I’m wearing.

I hopped in my DeLorean, got it up to 88 mph and went to 2011. This is what that year looks like.

Jack playing in a tent in the playroom. The kids slept in there on Saturday night.

Me and Ben after the game.

My rad new trophy.

It’s Thursday, again, which means it’s time for a weekend preview, again. I’m running a marathon again and having a contest again. Wow, that was annoying. I’m heading to Seattle this weekend for the Rock ‘N Roll Marathon up there. I’m having my weekly contest, but I’m also going with something different this week, too.

Just in case this is your first time here, I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, Jack (6 1/2), is severely autistic. I wanted to do something to make a difference in the autism community and try to create a legacy for him, so I’m running 60 marathons this year to try to raise money and awareness for a charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism. So far, I’m through 30 of the 60 marathons and I’m reaching people and raising money. I guess it’s working?

Anyways, I have a weekly contest where I have people guess my time in my race for the weekend. Since this is a charity, it costs money to enter. But not a whole lot of money. If you think my time is going to be 3:10, you donate $3.10. To donate, you can click here or you can click on the “Donate Now!” link at the top of any page on the site. I’ll give you a little bit of insight into how I think I’m going to run to help you with your guess.

Winner is the person who comes the closest without bidding under my time. If I choke and everybody bids under, it’s the person with the highest bid. The prize is your choice of an Operation Jack t-shirt, tech shirt or sweatshirt.

Last week’s winner was Sarah Emerson, an Operation Jack supporter out in Maine. She plays every week and finally won last week. I hope she keeps playing and tries to win the entire collection.

I Need Your Help
There’s a contest called Chase Community Giving through Facebook. Bottom line is you can vote once with your Facebook account and the top 200 vote-getting charities will receive at least $20,000. Right now, I think we’ve slipped somewhere to around 80th or so. We were in the 30s and then in the 60s. Not a lot of votes separate the positions, but I’d love to reverse this trend!

Please, please, please, take a minute to help out! Even if you’ve already voted, I could still use your help in posting it on your wall. Thank you!

Does Anybody Want To Race Me?
OK, so if you’re running this weekend, we can have a virtual race. Send me an email and we’ll figure out the details, but I’m handicapping myself at 3:15. I’ll handicap you based on your estimated finish time, goal, recent results, etc., even for a distance other than a full marathon. Say you’re going to try for a 2:15 half. I’ll tack an hour onto your finish time as a spread. So if you go 2:12 and I go 3:09, I win. But if you go 2:17 and I go 3:21, you win. Make sense?

I’ll pick the spread to make it fair, and like I said, I’ll do it for pretty much any distance between 10K and a marathon. You pick what you want the bet to be, but basically, I have three main donation levels. One is $26.20 and that gets a t-shirt. $60 is a t-shirt and a tech shirt and $100 is a t-shirt, tech shirt and sweatshirt. You pick the level you want to bet. You win, I send the clothing to you. If you don’t win, I send the clothing to you, but you have to make the donation.

If you want to do this, send me an email or hit the Contact Us link and drop me a line.

This Week’s Race
OK, here’s the deal. On July 11, I’m running as a pacer for the 3:10 group in Missoula, Montana. I’m only pacing the first half, so I’m going to run even splits and get to 1:35 and then I’m going to run the rest of the race on my own while somebody else takes the lead for the second half.

I’m not worried about hitting 1:35 in the half. I absolutely have the ability to do that, and it’s not really a huge stretch for me. But when I’m a pacer, I take it very seriously, because I don’t want to impact anybody else’s race. I would guess that I’ve hit 1:35 or better in a good 80% of my races this year, although I don’t really aim for that, so if I did, I’m sure it would be a higher percentage. My fastest first half this year was 1:30:03, and for 13.1 miles, five minutes is quite a bit of time at that level.

But here’s the thing: I blew up last week and went 1:37 and it freaked me out. So my goal on Saturday is to run tight splits for the first half and hit 13.1 in 1:34:50 to 1:35:00. That is, by far, my biggest goal. Not faster, not slower. I presume I’ll be able to hit that and then I’ll be in a groove. There are some uphill climbs that look moderate in the second half, but the last 10K looks pretty quick.

I never know how I’m going to feel once I get running, but if nothing goes wrong, I think I can run this race conservatively and go 3:10. It’s going to be a similar execution to what I did in Tampa, where I went out with a goal of running in the 7:10 range and not straying, and I did just that until stiff headwinds slowed me down over the final few miles and I went 3:09:44.

I don’t think there’s any chance I’d go any faster than 3:09, unless I was absolutely flawless, in which case I could be in the mid-3:08s. But 3:07 or better will absolutely not happen. I’m not feeling fast right now, but I do feel strong, so I think there’s a good chance I could kick well over the last 10K if I’m in range for a good time.

That being said, if I was betting, I’d go with a 3:12. But I think I really have a chance at a sub-3:10 with the way I plan to run. So, that’s all. I really, really hope you play along! The hot summer is beginning and I could really use your support! And if you’re running this weekend and you want to race me, let me know! Or keep it in mind for a future weekend if you have something on the calendar down the road.

That’s All For Today!
Have a great weekend! I’ll have a race report posted at some point on Saturday!