Operation Jack

Fighting autism, one mile at a time.

Archives for 2010

Ten Random Things For Tuesday Wednesday

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Normally I do 10 random things on Tuesday, but I did my Monday weekend recap yesterday because I wrote a book about United Airlines on Monday. So you’re getting Ten Random Things for Wednesday today. Not so keen on the alliteration charts, but it’s still something to help you be unproductive for a few minutes today.

1. This Friday is the day. If I can keep going, I’ll break my all-time record for consecutive days eating ice cream or frozen yogurt. Through last night, I’m at 108 days. My personal best is 110. I’m still thinking about how I’m going to do it, but I’m thinking about ice cream on top of waffles for breakfast.

2. Those people I saw in Cleveland are REALLY concerned about whether or not LeBron James is coming back. I heard lots and lots of chatter about it. I think he will. If he goes anywhere, he has to win a championship. If he stays with the Cavs, he’s the ultimate good guy for staying in Cleveland and then it’s up to management to give him a supporting cast. He’s already the face of the NBA. He’s not going to be any more marketable or make any more money anywhere else.

3. I know I talk a lot about how I eat In-N-Out, and I had that for lunch on Monday, but it’s not like I eat that every day. Yesterday for lunch, I had chicken tortilla soup, four pieces of whole wheat toast, a banana, and apple and some saltine crackers. I had chicken with rice and mushrooms for dinner last night. And tonight, for dinner, I’m having … oh, In-N-Out.

4. I’m really, really proud of my brother.

5.Look at the following:

Just yesterday, I was kind of bored and lonely
and a friend who knows about all my marathons
called me up and wished me luck this weekend. I
keep in touch with him, but we hadn’t talked in a month!

See how the first letters of those lines spell “Jack”? One time, in college, I wrote a column in the paper and asked for responsibility to handle the layout so I could edit it. I did, and the first letter of the top 25 or so lines asked a girl out on a date. I got the date, but it didn’t last. And that’s good — I met Tiffany four or five months later.

6. Wouldn’t it be nice if instead of having to run your guts out to support Operation Jack you could, say, go bowling instead? Well if you’re in Southern California, save the date — July 17! The hyperbaric chamber facility I go to with Jack, Advanced Hyperbarics, is having a bowling tournament at Lucky Strike at the Block of Orange to benefit Generation Rescue. I’m going to be in Iowa for a marathon on the 18th, but I’d love to have an Operation Jack team there! Yes, you can participate in Operation Jack by bowling! Here’s a flyer — let’s get a team going!

AH has done a great job helping me and Jack and tons of other children with autism. I’d love to be able to show them some support back and have OJ representing! Send me an e-mail if you’re interested!

7. When I pay $3.129 for a gallon of gas, I consider that $3.13. Because really, it is. Anyways, I bought gas on May 1, the day before the Orange County Marathon. It was $3.06 a gallon and I went out and ran a 3:06 the next day. Then, on May 10, the first time I bought gas after running a 3:19 in the Grand Valley Marathon, I paid $3.18. Two days later, I spent $3.05 per gallon and subsequently ran a 3:08 in Cleveland.

I’m really hoping that oil prices drop and gas hits $2.59 around here.


Tough to see, but it’s $3.059, $3.179 and $3.049.

8. When I was in college, I used to like to take my clothes off and run through campus. I loved the thrill of it. My fraternity brothers kept telling me I was going to get in trouble one time if I got caught, but I just couldn’t stop. But finally, I drank Windex one day. That stopped the streaking.

9. I spent some time on the phone last night with United Airlines, working on rectifying my situation from last weekend. 15 minutes on hold, 20 minutes on the phone, still not resolved. But I’ll keep at this until they do me right. The lady on the phone last night was very nice, but it’s Wednesday, and the sky is still blue, and I still hate United.

Oh by the way, I found out that if I come across the same lady who forced me to check my bag, I can demand that I speak to her supervisor on the spot. And believe me, I will.

10. If you want to hear me say “um” and “uh” a lot, check out this interview I did with a sports talk radio station in Colorado last week.

I’m no math major, but I was on the math team back in the day and I know when I hit 10. So, that’s all for today! See you tomorrow!

Weekend Recap: Tough Start, Great Finish

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Since I went with my long rambling blog about United Airlines yesterday, I’m doing my weekend recap today. The best part of this was that I was able to write it on my flight back Sunday after I wrote yesterday’s blog, so that freed me up last night! But there are other good parts about this blog. So please read it!

I always start my blog out with a quick intro. I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, 6 1/2-year-old Jack, is severely autistic. I’m trying to run 60 marathons this year to raise money and awareness for a charity called Train 4 Autism. So far, I’m accomplish all three of those goals. I’ve raised money. I’ve raised awareness. And I’m through 25 of the 60 marathons.

If you run enough marathons, some will be pretty blah and some will be pretty memorable. Cleveland, which I ran on Sunday is going to end up ranking amongst the top 5 for the year, and I know I can say that even though it’s only May. When you combine the Operation Jack people involved and the way I ran, it really stands out. It was a great day.

Worst Way To Start A Weekend
After work on Friday night, I went to the “Fun Fest” at Benjamin’s school. It’s the school’s annual fundraiser, a carnival that’s attended by pretty much everybody in the school. All of his friends are there, a lot of parents we know are there. This is the fifth year in a row we’ve gone and he has a blast every time. Ava kind of had a good time (she’s too young for a lot of the stuff), but she still had fun with me. Jack was home with my mother-in-law for his therapy session.

I hung out with Tiff and we watched Ben climb the rock wall (he got WAY higher than he did last year, almost to the top!) and then we all had fun watching a demonstration from the tae-kwon-do studio Ben goes to.

So why was this the worst way to start the weekend? Because we always go and stay until it ends at 8 p.m. But my flight was at 8:04 p.m., so I had to leave early to get to the airport. It was a total bummer walking away and leaving them behind, knowing this is the kind of thing I’m missing by doing Operation Jack. I was homesick before I even left. Next year will be better.

Worst Way To Continue A Weekend
In case you didn’t read about my episode with United Airlines, it was pretty sweet of them to lose my carry-on. How do they lose a carry-on? Kind of reminds me of the movie Friday … “How do you get fired on your day off?” … they lose your carry-on when they unnecessarily force you to check it.

Nothing like taking a red-eye flight and then spending the next day aimlessly wandering around Cleveland trying to track down a carry-on suitcase. I kept telling myself it would make my blog easy to write. And sure enough, yesterday’s blog was a breeze to put together. But I could really do without that convenience!

It’s Tuesday, and the sky is still blue, and United Airlines is still lousy.

Continental Airlines, Holla!
Not only do they do it the old-fashioned way and have us board from the back of the plane first (instead of with the “zones” the other airlines give us, which I suspect has a lot to do with how much you pay for your ticket), they feed you for free! We got enchiladas on our flight home!

Shirt Of The Weekend
So I’m getting on the subway Saturday night, and a dude is getting off. He’s wearing a bright green shirt with white lettering and a white four-leaf clover. The shirt says, “Everybody Loves An Italian Boy.”

Not Irish … Italian. Go figure.

I Met People!
As is frequently the case, I got to meet quite a few people who are very supportive of Operation Jack over the weekend. I was a total zombie and forgot to take a picture with Cyndi Kolonick at the expo on Saturday, but I met her and her daughter. She’s been good to talk to, and it’s always fun to put a face to a name.

I also got to meet Erin Fortin and her brother Will. Erin’s been really supportive since last summer and it was great to meet her. Will was pretty cool, too. Erin is a grad student at the University of Colorado, going after a Ph.D in some kind of chemistry something-or-another. Will is in school up in Wyoming chasing a Ph.D in geophysics or something like that. I spent 6 1/2 years getting a journalism degree and almost didn’t graduate because I nearly failed a one-hour freshman geology lab class in my seventh fall. They got a chuckle out of that. Science, not my thing.


I met Will and Erin on Saturday, but forgot to take a picture. But then there was Sunday. This is us before Erin owned the Cleveland Marathon.

Sunday morning before the race, I met Kim Bouldin, who was running her first marathon. Through Twitter, I come in contact with all sorts of people who have common interests with me. There are a lot of runners and a lot of people in the autism world. Kim is a runner (actually, Kim is now a marathoner!) and she lives gluten-free and is pretty active in that community, which overlaps with the autism community. We’ve talked a fair amount over the past several months, so it was nice to meet her in person. She’s super-friendly.


Me and Kim before the race. I accidentally had my flash set to “off”, so the picture came out kind of poor and didn’t Photoshop too well.

I also spent a fair amount of time with Jenn and Jamie Fellrath and their kids Duncan and Moira. Jenn and Jamie were involved with Train 4 Autism before I started Operation Jack and I’ve been in fairly close contact with them for the better part of a year now. They’ve been super nice over email and they’re the same way in person. I felt bad, because we had lunch on Saturday and I was more-or-less falling asleep sitting straight up by the end of it (the joys of red-eye flights!), but they were a lot of fun to talk to. I’m not going to disrespect their privacy and talk too much about their kids, but Duncan and Moira were both wonderful. I really enjoyed the time I spent with them.


That’s the Fellraths on the left sporting some sweet OJ gear after the race on Sunday.

Who Wants To Race Me?
Operation Jack supporter Danielle Speckman ran the Sugarloaf Marathon on Sunday and we made a bet. I spotted her an hour. Her prior PR was a 4:40 I think, but she was probably going to realistically run anywhere between maybe even a sub-4, and about 4:30. As for me, well, I’m always all over the board. You never know. I can turn in a 3:06 or a 3:22 and neither would surprise me.

So here was our bet: I’m going to send her an Operation Jack t-shirt, period. If she won, then she would get the shirt for free. If she lost, then she had to make the $26.20 contribution required on the Sponsors page for the marathon level that the t-shirt requires.

She ran a huge PR and finished in 4:15. She’s pretty excited about it, and rightly so. But I had a good day and I won the virtual race by about seven minutes. Since it’s all for fun and all for charity, Danielle doesn’t mind that I beat her. Really, if you look at my recent times, it’s very reasonable she could have won.

Anyways, if any of you are racing and you want to virtually race me, let me know and I’ll do the same deal with you. I’ll set a reasonable spread based on how you run, and I’ll send you a shirt win-or-lose. But if you lose, you make a charitable contribution to a great cause. If you’re running a half-marathon, we can still do it. If you’re gunning for sub-2, maybe you spot me 1:10 for my full time. I’ll take it on a case-by-case basis. Let me know if you’re interested.

One more thing about Danielle … check out her legs!


Should I do this?

I’m Keeping Promise To Sarah Loy
Sarah is an Operation Jack supporter out in Boston and she begged me to post another picture of myself from my larger days. I promised I would and I’m a man of my word.


That’s a Kansas State University Alumni sweatshirt I’m wearing.

One Good Thing About Air Travel
I ran a marathon in Cleveland Sunday morning, ate lunch there after the race (orange chicken and white rice … I was actually moderately healthy!) and was in California before sundown. I had chicken burritos for dinner in my own home and saw my kids before they went to sleep. That kind of stuff always trips me out.

That’s All For Today
Yesterday’s blog was long enough. I should only do that on special occasions. Enjoy your tacos today!

United: Not The Friendly Skies

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I’m going to give you fair warning: If you like United Airlines, you’re not going to want to read this blog. They’re terrible, and they did a number on me this weekend. I’m stuck with who I travel with, so I can’t say I won’t fly them again, but I will never fly them again unless I absolutely have to.

Let me start with a quick preface. I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, 6 1/2-year-old Jack, is severely autistic and to try to make a difference in his honor, I’m trying to run 60 full marathons this year to raise money and awareness for a great charity called Train 4 Autism. So far, everything is going fairly well.

On Sunday, I ran my 25th marathon of 2010 in Cleveland (you can read my recap here — it was a GREAT day!). Through all those races, I’ve flown a lot. I’ve flown nine times on Delta, seven on Southwest, four on Continental, four on United, three on US Airways, three on American, one on Frontier and one on Jet Blue. I’ve experienced a lot since January 1 and I know the differences between the airlines.

If you don’t fly a lot nowadays, it’s really become a pain with all the airlines charging for checked luggage. Everybody tries to carry on as much as possible and the overheads get full. There’s borderline pushing and shoving at boarding time. I carry on because I need to keep my running gear in my possession. I can’t run the risk of losing my gear. I made that mistake when I flew out to the Kansas City Marathon in 2008. If you’re ever traveling to a race, don’t check your running gear if you’re flying the day before a race.

Anyways, I absolutely dread flying United. They really, really did me wrong this time. I’m going to explain in just a minute, but first, I want to give you some background. They have a terrible rule with their carry-ons. They board by zone, and if you’re in boarding zone 4 and the flight is anywhere near full, they won’t let you carry on a rolling suitcase. A lot of duffel bags are actually bigger, but it’s those little wheels that must make all the difference. They’re afraid that the overheads will fill. Well, they need to take a lesson from Delta. On Delta, they don’t force anybody to check a bag until the overheads are actually full. What a concept!

My first two times flying United, they took my bag as part of their zone 4 policy. Both times, there was plenty of room in the overheads when the plane was closed. The first time, they lost my bag and I had to be the guy to figure out how to track it down. They were also late on their flight and I missed my connecting flight, so the agent re-routed me from Philadelphia to Dulles through Chicago instead of straight to Norfolk. Yeah, that makes sense.

The second time, they did the zone 4 thing and took my bag. I asked the woman who forced me to check it if I could be the very last person on the plane and stick it in the overhead if there was space. She told me no and put a tag on it. I brought it down and waited to be the last person on the plane anyways. Sure enough, there was plenty of space, and the flight attendants said I could bring it on. But the guy who sent my bag down the stairs wouldn’t walk down and get it for me. So they checked it, and I got to wait at the baggage claim for my mistreated bag (it’s a little torn up now) instead of going straight home to see my family.

I book as close to the back of the plane as possible on United so I don’t get stuck in zone 4. My third trip, home from Grand Junction last weekend, was uneventful. But this weekend took the cake.

I was in zone 2 on Friday night. I flew Continental, but in one of those co-op deals they do, my first flight, to San Francisco, was on United. My carry-on bag is built to the specifications that the airlines or the FAA has set. It fits perfectly inside those little cages. It doesn’t pass the eyeball test about 1/3 of the time, but I drop it in the cage without worry every time. Once, on Frontier, it didn’t fit, but the cage was bent, so that wasn’t really the bag’s fault.

Anyways, the woman taking my ticket on Friday told me my bag was too big and needed to be checked. I told her I get that every time, but it fits in the overheads and fits in the cage and I wanted to show her that. United doesn’t actually have a cage — they just have a plastic board with a template defining the allowable space. It was two feet from her, but she wouldn’t let me show her. We went back-and-forth a couple of times, but she refused to even consider it. I was pretty angry as she checked my bag to Cleveland.


Here’s my suitcase in the cage. I put it in upside down and it’s resting on the handle and it looks like it’s sticking out maybe half an inch. The other way, it’s probably on the money. Either way, it’s much thinner than a lot of other rolling suitcases and duffel bags that absolutely wouldn’t fit in that cage. You can see that this bag is clearly made to carry-on specifications. If they want to challenge this, I’d love to see them enforce about 75 percent of the bags that get carried on nowadays that would absolutely not fit in this cage.


That’s my bag on the right on the way back on Sunday. I didn’t even have to turn it sideways like a lot of people do. Of the two bags here, mine is obviously smaller. I challenge anybody to tell me my bag doesn’t fit.

When I got down to the plane, I asked the flight attendants if they could watch me put my bag in the overhead. It fits. Just like I know my name is Sam, I know my bag fits. But they said no, that once the decision is made at the gate, there’s nothing they can do about it. That’s funny — the crew when I was coming back from Dallas was going to let me bring it on. This time, the rules were different. The woman who was going to take the luggage down to get loaded on the plane said that once it’s tagged in the system, they can’t do anything about it because it affects the weights and measures of the plane.

OK, this is where I call B.S. I asked her if she was kidding. Seriously, a 25-pound bag? What if I still weighed 261 pounds instead of 200? What if it was a duffel bag and they had no record of me carrying it on? They had no clue what that bag weighed and if that bag affected the measures of the plane, I’m not sure I’m comfortable flying.

We got to San Francisco and had a three-hour layover. Yes, three hours. And when I got to Cleveland, sure enough, my bag wasn’t there. I wasn’t happy, to say the least. But now, it was a Continental problem, because that flight was on Continental.

Continental couldn’t track the bag in the database. They had no clue if it was in Orange County, San Francisco or Cleveland. But they told me that if they didn’t deliver it within 24 hours, I’d be eligible for an allowance for replacement clothing. The problem, of course, is that my race was in 23 hours. I’m on a pretty tight budget with five mouths to feed from one income in California. I didn’t really want to go on a shopping spree.

About an hour later, I called back and asked for status. They still didn’t know where the bag was. I explained to them my situation. I’m trying to raise $100,000 for charity this year under the pretense of running at least one marathon every weekend. I was wearing sandals, layup pants and a tech shirt. Not exactly marathon wear. I didn’t have 24 hours and I needed them to track my bag. I said that if they were going to stick to their 24-hour rule, I wanted somebody who understood that it wasn’t my swimsuit I was waiting for to confirm that decision.

The man from Continental (and they did a very good job with handling United’s mess for me) told me that if they didn’t have a solid indicator of when I’d get the bag by 3 p.m. Saturday, I’d have a green-light to shop. In hindsight, I probably should have just bought stuff anyways. But I was a zombie after taking a red-eye and I didn’t. At 3 p.m., they told me they absolutely had the bag in San Francisco and that it was going to be on a flight getting into Cleveland at 9:15. They knew the urgency of the situation and they were going to deliver the bag to my hotel.

So I took a nap, woke up and got some dinner. I was jogging on the sidewalk in my sandals, imagining running a marathon in them. I was thinking about running barefoot if that’s what it came down to, but I figured that would probably break bones in my feet, because I’m not trained for that. My backup plan became finding a 24-hour Wal-Mart, getting whatever shoes and clothing I could find and running the race in that.

I was super tired, so I talked to my wife and gave her the information and asked her to stay on top of it with Continental to make sure the bag made its way to my hotel. I saw on the computer that it was in Cleveland at 9:52, so I hopped into bed, set my alarm for 2:30 a.m. just in case I didn’t have my bag by then, and trusting my wife would get it squared away.

At 10:12, she called me and told me she had good news and bad news. They definitely had my bag in Cleveland. But I had to go to the airport to pick it up. They couldn’t guarantee it would be there by 8 a.m., which wasn’t good considering the race was at 7. So I ran to the subway (nothing quite like riding the subway in Cleveland on a Saturday night) and went to the airport. I ran through the terminal to get my bag and I was thrilled to have it in my possession!

I took the subway back and 40 minutes after I left my hotel, I was back. I was too wired to fall asleep, so sometime after 11:45, I finally fell asleep (I woke up for the race at 4:30 a.m.).

All of this could have been avoided if the woman would have let me measure my bag. But for whatever reason, she got a kick out of telling me no. I’ve never had her job, but if I was in her position and somebody told me their bag really did fit and they were adamant about it, I’m sure I’d let the person measure it right in front of my eyes to end it and move on to the next person. Maybe she’s the type who can’t let go of an argument and admit she’s wrong?

Whatever the case, she really did a number wrecking my trip. And of all the problems I’ve had traveling this year, United is the common denominator. Three times now.

But I’m not done. I’m going to do everything I can to make this right. The airlines, in general, don’t do a whole lot when it comes to service. You have no options and they know it and they treat you accordingly. But I’m still going to push. They need to do something to make this right. I really feel like they owe me for what they did.

What I really want to know more than anything is what happened to my bag. One of two things happened. Either it never made it on my plane or something happened and they couldn’t get it to the right spot (even with three hours) in San Francisco. That’s possible, since it had to go from United to Continental. If that’s the case, I want to know what I can do to help the situation in the future — who I can call when I’m switching planes or whatever. I’m not going to have this happen again.

But if didn’t make it on the plane out of Orange County? Then I’ll know the woman who took my bag on the jetway sabotaged me. There’s no other possible explanation for that one.

So, I’ll wait and see. You can be absolutely certain that I won’t fly United unless I absolutely have to. You can do what you want, but don’t say you weren’t warned.

Race Report: Cleveland Marathon

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I went into Sunday’s Cleveland Marathon really wanting to run a good race. Beyond the fact that I’ve put together some decent efforts lately, this was the home course for a couple of loyal Operation Jack supporters and I really wanted to turn in a solid effort. I felt I owed it to them.

The loyal supporters are Erin Fortin, a grad student at the University of Colorado, and Jamie and Jenn Fellrath of Columbus, Ohio. Erin grew up in the Cleveland area and Columbus is relatively close to Cleveland. Erin flew back to visit her family and run the marathon, only her second. Jenn was going to run the half marathon, but she got injured and couldn’t. The Fellraths still came down to support me though. I was pretty excited about this race all week, and really wanted to run well. Like I said, I felt like I owed that to them.

Unfortunately, I had some issues with my luggage. Long story short, I didn’t have my running shoes until 10:45 p.m. the night before the race (no, I don’t check luggage when I travel). And between the time I woke up on Friday and the time I ran the race on Sunday, I had 3 hours sleep on a plane, a 2 1/2 hour nap in my hotel, and 4 1/2 hours of sleep at night in my hotel. In addition, go-time was 7 a.m. Eastern, so I was up at 4:30 a.m., which was 1:30 a.m. body time. I had a few things working against me. But that didn’t take away from the fact that I still owed them a good race!

A little before the start, Erin told me she thought I was going to run a 3:08. Since she was running with her phone, I told her to text me at the three-hour mark. Her one prior marathon was in the five-hour range, and while it was a trail marathon at elevation, she didn’t have a ton of confidence and she planned on starting between the 4:00 and 4:20 pacers. She was also having knee problems and got a cortisone shot last week. She had no idea if she was going to be closer to four hours or five hours, and if it was the latter, with my flight schedule, I needed to head back to my hotel to shower and pack and then get back to the finish.

Anyways, we parted ways before the start and got rolling. I started between the 3:00 and 3:10 pace groups and tucked in a little bit behind the 3:00 group pretty quickly. To keep it under control, I stayed a touch back the first couple of miles and then went by heart rate, keeping it between 170 and 173 or so. I felt pretty good early and was turning quite a few miles in the 6:40-6:50 range. I had some early burning in my shins and calves, which always happens when I’m running quick. And, like always, it went away by mile 6 and I get into a zone.

I ran my own race, but fluctuated between 15 and 30 seconds behind the 3:00 group for the first 10 or so miles. I started to feel the pain I’ve been having in my right hip and glute at about mile 8, but it didn’t really slow me down. At mile 10, though, we started facing a pretty stiff headwind. That slowed me down. My 6:50s turned into 7:20s in a hurry. I saw the Fellraths and their two children at about mile 12 and they knew I was pretty close to the 3:00 group, but they didn’t know I knew I could feel the struggle coming on.

I went through the half at 1:31:42 on my Garmin, which I was pretty happy with. I figured I had a good shot at sub-3:05, and a very good shot at sub-3:10. However, the headwinds didn’t let up and my pace started to slip. I was struggling a little bit to find power in my stride and the sub-3:10 was starting to look a little questionable.

I think the wind went away after mile 17 or 18, but I wasn’t moving too well, registering miles up close to 7:45 or so. At about 21, I caught a second wind and started to move, dropping about 30 seconds a mile off my pace and locking into a groove. I wasn’t really kicking, but I was moving pretty well. Starting with about 5 miles to go, I started doing the math in my head each mile to calculate how fast I needed to average to get at least a 3:09. It started at about 7:30/mile I would need, but as I started ticking off 7:00 miles, that got better and better and I started thinking about that 3:08 Erin predicted.

That seemed like a longshot with three to go, but I powered through the 24th and 25th miles and all of a sudden, all I needed was about a 7:30 or so for the last mile. Barring a total collapse, it that was easy. A 3:09 was a given. But I still put the hammer down as well as I could with about a 6:45 and finished in 3:08:32. I was pretty happy. I ran well, did a fairly good job of fighting through, and I made it happen when I needed to. It was my fourth-fastest run of the year, my 11th-fastest ever. I was pretty happy, especially considering how tired I was heading into the race.

The course was pretty decent. I was expecting it to be pretty ugly, because Cleveland has a stereotype of being kind of blah. But it was actually a pretty good course. We ran through their downtown area, which was one of the nicer downtowns I’ve seen in a big city, plus we went by the NFL stadium, through several neighborhoods that seemed decent, along Lake Erie for quite a while, through a nice park, and then back into the city to finish it up with downtown as the backdrop. Course support was very good and the volunteers did a great job.

But what I’ll really remember from this race was what happened after I finished. I went to get my phone to see if Erin texted me. I needed to know if she was going to be closer to 4:00 or 5:00.

You better be done by now 🙂 ipm ahead of the 340 group!!

Yeah, she had a typo with that apostrophe, but I’m just telling the story as accurately as possible. No big deal, right? Anyways, I was crazy excited to see that. I was with the Fellraths and I was jumping up and down (figuratively, not literally — my hip hurt like I had just run a marathon or something). We scooted back over to the finish area and there was 3:32 on the clock. We started watching and I was looking for her. She was wearing all black.

But every time somebody in all black came by, it wasn’t her. I was really hoping she’d hit 3:40:59 or better and qualify for Boston. That would have been amazing. But then I saw the 3:40 pace leader go through. And I kept looking for her, and looking for her. And I didn’t see her. I was totally bummed. At about 3:45, I texted her and asked her if she was OK.

She texted me back that she was at the end of the finishers chute! Silly me, she was wearing green! She went 3:40:29 and qualified for Boston. I was so excited for her. I’ve seen people do better than they expect to do, but never like this. For the life of me, I don’t know how anybody starts out aiming for a 4:15 or so and ends up with a 3:40. That’s more than a minute per mile quicker than she set out to do, and at that speed, that’s not easy. I was amazed, excited, happy for her … it was awesome and it made my weekend. That will probably be my memory of the race.

So, 25 down, 35 to go. And next year, when I run Boston, I’ll see Erin!


The Fellraths, me, Erin and her brother Will. Cleveland was Will’s first marathon and he went 3:29 … not bad!

Weekend Preview: Race #25, Cleveland Marathon

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It’s already Thursday, which is great for several reasons. First, I don’t have to write a blog tonight. Also, I start carb-loading again today, although really, I’m not very excited about that. I get to go out to lunch with my wife and daughter today since it’s Thursday (except I really won’t, because she’s been busy this week with a lot of things and can’t make it). But most important, I get to offer up my weekend preview blog, and while that might not truly be what’s most important, it’s a lead-in to the rest of my blog.

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 wanted to do something to try to make sense and a purpose out of what he’s going through, so I came of with the idea of trying to run 60 marathons this year to raise money and awareness for a charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism. I call it my stupid human trick.

So far, I’m on target. This is the 20th weekend of 2010 coming up and Sunday’s Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon will be my 25th full marathon of the year.

Weekly Contest
Every week, I have a contest where you try to guess my time in my upcoming race. Now, since this is all for charity, it costs money to participate in the contest. But since I’m a really nice guy, it doesn’t cost a whole lot of money. Basically, if you think my time is going to be 3:12, you donate $3.12. If you think it’s going to be 4:00, I don’t like you either, but I thank you for the $4. To enter, you can click here or on the “Donate Now!” link on the top of any page.

The person who wins the contest is the person who comes the closest without bidding under and in the event of a tie, I’ll draw between the participants who tied. The winner gets their choice of an Operation Jack t-shirt, tech shirt or sweatshirt. The sweatshirts are getting pretty good reviews, although I’m not getting complaints about anything.

Last week’s winner was Katey Williamson. She should just write my blog and tell what she expects me to do, because I think this is the third time she’s won. She said she wanted to keep playing until she won one of each item. I told her I hoped she started losing so I could keep getting her $3. Oh well, I was just joking and I’m happy with whoever wins, because they played, which I appreciate.

To help you play the contest, I write a little bit of a preview of the race and I forecast how I think I’m going to do. It’s a crapshoot — anything can happen during the course of a race — but I usually know when I’m going to run well and when I’m not going to run well. I’ll get to that in a bit.

Tweet Of The Day
Ok, so if you don’t follow me on Twitter, you found this blog other than from when I tweeted it. And you missed my Tweet of the Day yesterday, as voted on by me.

“Tom Brady has sons named Benjamin & Jack & a hot wife, just like me. But I have 52 marathon medals & he only has 3 Super Bowl rings.” Yep, that’s true. If you follow me on Twitter (@operationjack) you’ll get pearls of wisdom like that.

Jack Story Of The Day
Jack had a great morning yesterday. He struggled getting out of bed, but he was in a great mood when I got him to school, which was the exact opposite of Tuesday. I picked him up from Tiff after work because we had a session at Advanced Hyperbarics last night.

It’s so weird, because I meet up with Tiff at a gas station right off the highway to get Jack. Any outsider watching would probably think we’re having a custody exchange. I learned to stop really caring about what other people think a while ago, because with Jack I’ve learned to focus on him, not strangers.

Anyways, the session was great for the first 2/3 or so, and I started writing this blog (on a pad of paper with a pencil) while he watched a Curious George movie. But out of nowhere, he started having a meltdown and I struggled to calm him down. I felt bad watching him sit there getting so upset. I have no clue what the problem is, and I hate looking at the little guy knowing he has to sit through his sessions in there because of something he was born with. A lot of kids are much worse off, but it’s still sad to look at your own kid and know he’s not living a typical childhood.

At least on the ride home he was pretty calm and then he went to sleep without much issue. Poor little dude.

Race Preview
OK, this week’s race is the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon. I took a quick look at the course profile yesterday. It’s got some rollers and a couple of decent climbs, but it doesn’t look ridiculous. I wouldn’t call it a PR course, but it looks like a course I could reasonably expect to go fast on if I have a good day.

The more I race, the more I realize I don’t race too well heading up longer hills, but I do fairly well on rollers. You use different muscles going uphill than you do downhill, so I mix it up and my body seems to respond pretty well to that. They don’t faze me like they used to. I just wish I didn’t fade so bad heading up hills.

A big part of it all is mental, and mentally, I’m fired up to run. I have some very good supporters running in this race, and the way I see it, I owe them a good run on their course. I felt the same way when I ran Tampa with Jen Morgan, and I feel the same way this weekend. I started doing a training plan with speedwork again last week, so I’m just getting going with that.

Physically, I’m feeling decent, aside from some sporadic throbbing in my right leg. Mentally, though, I have some confidence with two sub-3:10s in the past month, plus the addition of speedwork to my regimen. And of course, I’m pretty excited to run. I probably won’t be too well rested, but I won’t be excessively tired.

I want this one bad and I really think I can go get it. So, as optimistic as this sounds, I’m setting my over/under at 3:08.

Please, please, please … I know you have $3! Hook me up with the pat on the back I’m craving and participate in the contest! Just click on the “Donate Now!” link on the top of this page!

EDIT: I wrote this blog Wednesday night, but on my run Thursday morning, my right hip/glute really started stinging me at about 5 miles in. I’m working on this and am optimistic about Sunday. If this flares up, though, it could be another one of those days in the 3:20 range. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Follow-Up To My Tweet Of The Day
So I went with this: “My wife found Dreyer’s Root Beer Float flavored ice cream with only 100 calories per 1/2 cup. Let’s see Tom Brady’s wfe buy that!” That’s what I had last night to stretch the streak to 102 days. Eight more to tie my record, nine to make history.


You want this. Believe me, you want this.

That’s All For Today, Folks
Have a great weekend! I’ll post a race recap at some point on Sunday.