Fighting autism, one mile at a time.
Some things I’ll never forget. Like the day we had the senior barbecue out at the pool in high school. It was 19 years ago this Sunday and I remember the details like it was yesterday. For me, it’s the day I use as the primary reference point in my life. Everything I’ve done was either before or after November 7, 1991 — the day I broke my neck.
Finally, I know where Operation Jack is going to end. Right here:
This is where the start-finish line will be for the Operation Jack Marathon on December 26. Just in case you’ve never been here before, I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, 7-year-old Jack, is severely autistic. I’m trying to raise money and awareness for a charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism by running 61 marathons this year.
It’s been tough, because I still do everything I can to spend time with my family (I watched Happy Feet with Jack this morning, read Ava three books last night and lost three times, unintentionally, to Benjamin at Uno last night), I work full time, I handle all of the logistics, and then there’s that whole “running one or two or three marathons on the weekend” thing, too.
But I can see the finish line. Literally, now. I’ve completed 52 marathons and an ultramarathon. I have nine marathons to go, and that ninth and final race will be the Operation Jack Marathon on December 26. Well, unless any of you know a potential title sponsor. In that case, the name would change! You can view all the details of the race at operationjack.org/61 or by clicking the “Marathon No. 61” link at the top of any page on this site.
Anyways, I’ve had the “pleasure” of putting together this final race. I had to find a course and Operation Jack supporter Jake Rome was kind enough to help me with that. We have one along the coast and marina at Dockweiler State Beach in Manhattan Beach and Marina Del Ray, Calif.
It’s been quite the process to obtain a permit and insurance. I’ve been through close to a dozen people in various government offices, but we’re all set. It’s going to two scenic laps of a 13.1-mile out-and-back. Half marathoners will only run once. I’m working on the medals, we’ll have aid stations and shirts for participants. There’s also going to be refreshments at the finish line.
Online registration will be available starting tomorrow. The cost is going to be $45 for the half marathon, $55 for the marathon. Reasonable for a race that includes a medal, a t-shirt, aid stations and benefits a charity? I hope so! It should be a good time. I know I’m going to be celebrating when I finish!
Operation Jack started here in Kingwood, Texas, on January 1:
Now, I know where and how it’s going to end!
If you’ve never been exhausted, and you want to get exhausted, I have a great solution for you. Just do what I did this weekend!
Real quick, just in case you’ve never been here before, I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, 7-year-old Jack, is severely autistic. I decided I wanted to do something to try to make a difference in his honor, so I’m attempting to run 61 full marathons this year to raise money and and awareness for a great charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism.
So far, so good. I ran marathon No. 52 of the year yesterday (Marine Corps Marathon, recap here). It was a great one! And I’m in single-digits now — only nine to go!
Anyways, back to my weekend. I’m going to start it on Friday night, because, well, who doesn’t start their weekend on Friday night?
Friday Night
I was the last one out of the office at about 5:30, then I got home, had dinner with the kids and Jack and Ava went to bed fairly early. They were both pretty tired.
I ran out to get a sports drink I needed for my race on Sunday, but the GNC near my home didn’t carry it and I wasn’t going to drive an extra 15 minutes to get to the Vitamin Shoppe where I normally go.
I hung out for a little while with my oldest son, Benjamin, and my wife, Tiffany. We played Uno in a game that went on for a little while. Ben beat us both, but in the competition that really mattered, me and Tiff played it out for second and I beat her.
I packed for my trip, then stayed up and got comfortable with a bowl of ice cream watching Millionaire Matchmaker on DVR with Tiff. I’ll admit it, I like that show. What’s really great about that show is that we both like it and watch it together. She likes reality shows (I can’t stand them) and all I watch is sports and the news, so when we have a show we can watch together, that’s awesome.
I successfully fought off the fall-asleep-on-the-couch gremlins and I made it through the show. Friday night ended at 10:30.
Saturday
Saturday started at 3:40 a.m. I got up, got ready, had breakfast and left for the airport an hour later. LAX is a 54-mile drive. I wasn’t all that tired, though. I parked strategically at a lot I don’t always use. But it mattered — you’ll see why on Sunday.
I got on my flight to Washington D.C. on Virgin America. Sweet plane — it was nice and they have satellite TV. I dozed some, did some work on the computer with college football on in the background, dozed some more, ate some snacks and landed at Dulles.
I got my car and went straight to the expo. There was a lot of traffic and chaos there because of the Jon Stewart rally. Amazingly, I found free parking on the street right across from the expo! I met up with several people there, got my stuff, caught up with Operation Jack supporter Ally Phillips to make carpool plans for Sunday morning, then left.
I stayed with relatives in the D.C. area, and I had a dinner to go to. I wanted to be able to stop by and visit for at least an hour before I turned around and left. All the mapquesting I’d done said it would take about 20-30 minutes to get there. I got in the car at about 4:45 and needed to go 6.2 miles. I got there at 5:40. That’s a 55-minute 10K — I can run faster than that!
The traffic was exhausting and I could only stay for about 10 minutes and I left to go to an annual dinner put on by the Organization for Autism Research. That was 8.5 miles away and my GPS said it would take 30 minutes. 20 minutes for a dinner like that would be a reasonable amount to be fashionably late to. It took me 40 minutes to get to the area, but there were all sorts of parking problems and it took me another 20 minutes.
I finally got into the dinner an hour late, but I wasn’t the only one with parking problems. Everything was fine, and it was a really nice event. It ended at about 8:30 and I mingled until about 8:45 and got to my car about 10 minutes later. I had to go 8.5 miles back and I didn’t get there until 10 p.m. It was the perfect storm of marathoners, the rally and Halloween that made that city a zoo. It was the worst traffic I’d ever been in. I covered four of those miles in about 20 minutes. Those 4.5 that took a good 45 minutes drove me crazy.
There was some good people-watching in D.C. — the crazies were certainly out for Halloween. It was exhausting. I walked in the house and I was dead-tired. I stayed up visiting until 11:30, because it was my only chance and I don’t get a chance to see them often. Finally, I got upstairs, got everything ready for Sunday, did something real quick for work that needed to be done at midnight, texted my boss to let her know it was done and called it a day.
Saturday started at 3:40 a.m. in California, I lost three hours in the air and it ended a little after midnight in D.C. I had gotten about 17 hours of sleep the previous three nights and was looking at a max of five. I had no idea how I would function on Sunday.
Sunday
I set the alarm for 5:15 a.m., which is 2:15 a.m. body time. I somehow woke naturally at 5:14 and avoided the alarm, which is nice. I’m like a Pavlovian dog with the alarm clock on my phone. When I hear it, I know it’s time to wake up and run a marathon. I like running marathons, but they’re hard work and sometimes that sound puts dread into me. I was glad to avoid it.
I got ready, tiptoed out of the house, then went to pick up Ally and her husband, Justin. We had VIP parking at Fort Myer, which was nice. It took us a little while to figure out where to park, but we got there and walked down to the race. I didn’t realize it at the time, because it was dark, but we parked about 30 yards from graves at Arlington National Cemetery.
Here’s a picture I took when I got back to my car:
Back to before the race, we walked down, Ally got me a wristband for the VIP tent, I went to the O.A.R. tent for a few minutes and then it was time to go to the race. So I went and ran the race. Afterwards, it took me about 45 minutes to walk and get my stuff, get a little bit of food, take my picture, then leave to walk to my car. My car was about a 20-minute walk and when I got in, I headed straight for the airport.
With the traffic mess, I knew better than to try to cross back over into D.C. to go to my relatives’ house to shower, then head back to Dulles. If I missed my flight, I’d miss trick-or-treating. I got to my car at 12:30 and my flight at Dulles, which was 30 miles away, was at 2:44. That’s a big airport — you can’t walk in and get on a plane in 30 minutes.
My plan to clean up was to find a public restroom somewhere and do the best I could with a package of baby wipes I had. But I googled a gym and found one near the airport. I was going to call them and ask if I could show up and take a shower, but I figured it would be easier to show up and ask them nicely in person.
I got there, asked the woman nicely, told her I ran the marathon but needed to catch a flight to get home to go trick-or-treating with my kids. She asked me if I was a member, and I told her I wasn’t — I live in California! I told her I would appreciate it, but since I had a middle seat coming back, the two people sitting next to me would really appreciate it!
She gave me a green light, and it was pretty nice to take a shower instead of cleaning myself with baby wipes in a restroom stall! I talked to my wife on the phone before I got to the gym and told a baby-wipe cleansing would at least make for a good blog, but I wasn’t wanting that.
After putting gas in the rental car, I got to the airport, got through security and was one of the last people to board the plane. I made it by less than 10 minutes and didn’t have time to grab anything to eat.
When I was boarding, they told me they were out of space in the overheads for roller bags and would have to check it. I was so bummed, because it was going to the baggage claim, which would cut 20-30 minutes out of my trick-or-treating time with my kids. There’s nothing I could do, but I saw a spot when I went down the aisle, so I ran back off the plane before my bag got sent down and asked the gate attendant if I could put in the space I found.
She said yes! I’ll give credit where credit is due — this was United! Y’all know how much I hate United. Well FINALLY they came through for me!
So I was on the plane, on my way back to Los Angeles, excited that I made it through my tight timeline to catch my plane back. I was a zombie, too. I fell asleep for about 30 minutes then woke up and wrote my race report.
I have something like 3,000 songs on my iPod and when I fly, I put it on random shuffle. I have a really wide variety on there so it’s a good mix to pass the time. I kid you not, this was the second song I heard:
I dozed for about two hours after that and woke up and started cranking out this blog.
We landed at 5:20 and the race was on — I had to get out of the airport, get to my car, and drive 54 miles to get home so we could get to our church, which had a “Blocktober” safe trick-or-treating function.
I had a text that there was a problem with the website at work, so I got on the phone with Tiff and taught her how to move files around. Problem fixed. Yay for technology, I guess. I flew down the highway and got home in time to hit a few houses on the street with the kids before heading over to the Blocktober with the family, my parents and my in-laws. Everybody had a great time, especially the kids.
We got back, I took care of another work problem, tucked the kids into bed, unpacked, got some stuff done on the computer, and all of a sudden it was 10:30, more than 20 hours after I woke up. I successfully fought the fall-asleep-on-the-couch gremlins to watch a murder mystery on TV with Tiff, but she wasn’t strong enough to stay awake! Ha — I win!
And now it’s Monday morning, time for work. It’s like I never left.
I’ve run a few patriotic races that I’ve really enjoyed this year. There was Oklahoma City in April, a tribute to the victims of the 1995 bombing. The there was Portland/Sauvie Island on July 4, a heck of a way to kick off Independence Day. Recently, I ran a 9-hour, 11-minute timed race on September 11 that was as American as apple pie. But Sunday’s Marine Corps Marathon in Arlington, Va., and Washington D.C. was as good as it gets.
As the Marine Corps Marathon, there’s a very strong military presence. Soldiers handed us our race bib at the expo. Soldiers manned the aid stations and handed us water and Powerade. Soldiers ran in the race. We start right alongside Arlington National Cemetery. It was pretty awesome.
I was walking up to the start line and I saw the start of the wheelchair race. There were two entrants who were obviously soldiers who had lost their legs. They both had 10 or so Marines running behind them. The amputees were young, maybe 22 at the oldest. There are no words to explain what it was like to see them wheeling by with their fellow Marines supporting them. I think I look up to soldiers more than just about anybody and I more-or-less felt undeserving to run in the same race as them.
But I did and I was excited about the course. I knew we’d run by Arlington, the National Mall, the Washington Monument, the Capitol Building and eventually finish by the Iwo Jima Memorial.
So yeah, my running, big deal. I headed into the race with pretty low expectations. I’ve run some tough courses lately and I’ve beat myself up, but I haven’t run a marathon quicker than 3:28 since September 4. I was hoping I could go better than 3:20, but realistically I knew I couldn’t expect much more out of myself than a 3:30. But really, I wasn’t too worried about it. I was out to give my best and enjoy everything the race stands for.
I felt OK early, ran hard and hit the half in 1:35. I knew I wouldn’t hold it. I wasn’t pushing too hard, but there’s not enough left in my legs right now to put together a solid 26.2 miles. I didn’t fear running too fast and gave it my all.
As I mentioned, the aid stations were manned by Marines. There were also some civilian volunteers, but I only took water and Powerade from the Marines. If you have an opportunity to have your heroes hand you drinks while you’re running a marathon, you don’t pass that up! I looked at all of them at every station and was wowed like I was by baseball players when I was a kid. Those are the bravest, toughest people in America and they’re willing to die so I can live the life I want to. I know it sounds corny, but I really have a huge amount of respect for them.
I slowed down after about mile 15. Not intentionally — my legs just refused to play along any more. I started to feel flare-ups in my right knee with the tendinitis and IT band problems I’ve had lately. No big deal. I’m used to running in pain. At around mile 18 or so, we ran right by the Capitol Building and it was pretty crazy to thing about the impact of all the business that gets taken care of in there. I don’t get into my own personal politics here, but realistically, everybody knows that building is going to get shaken up on Tuesday and it was eerie to run by it — the calm before the likely storm.
At about mile 24, we ran by the Pentagon. That was pretty wild, too. I looked at those windows and thought about the decisions that come of there. Those decisions are a lot more powerful and affect a lot more lives than any decision that’s ever come out of any building I’ll ever work at, that’s for sure. It also came to mind that a plane crashed down there on 9/11. I wasn’t sure exactly where, but I knew there was serious turmoil in that area that day. I’ll take a look online when I get a chance.
Ok, so I finished the race in 3:23:51. I’ll take it — it’s a step in the right direction for me. I stepped up my training a little bit this week with some hill work and track work and I’m optimistic I can continue to regain some speed if I keep working hard.
Enough about my running, though. When I finished the race, I looked up and was staring right at the Iwo Jima Memorial. A Marine with the last name Yatus put my medal around my neck, complete with “Oo-rah, congratulations Sir.” Pretty cool, but I felt pretty humble. Running 26.2 miles is no big deal, certainly nothing for a soldier to congratulate me for. But it was certainly a pretty cool cap to a great race.
I run a lot of marathons and hit some that are better than others. This one ranks right up there with the two other major marathons I’ve run this year, Boston and Chicago. It’s well worth running. I couldn’t imagine somebody not enjoying it.
And that’s pretty much it, I guess. Another marathon completed for Operation Jack. 52 down, only nine to go!
Well, here we go again. Another weekend, another marathon, another weekend preview. This weekend preview will be a little different than normal, though. We’re getting down to the wire so I have a little bit of a different approach right now.
Really quick, just in case you’ve never been here before, I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, 7-year-old Jack, is severely autistic, so I decided to try to make a difference in the world by running 61 marathons in 2010 to raise money and awareness for a great charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism. I named my endeavor Operation Jack, after my son.
So far, I’m through 51 of the 61, plus I’ve run a couple of ultras. Only 10 more marathons to run and I can call this thing a wrap!
Marathon No. 52: Marine Corps Marathon
I’m running Marine Corps Marathon in Washington D.C. on Sunday morning. Flying out Saturday morning and I’ll be back in time to go trick-or-treating with the kids on Sunday. Ahhh, the joys of airplanes. I expect to be extremely tired Sunday night.
I don’t know much about the course profile, but I’m not worried about it. If it were extremely hilly, it would have a reputation. I’ll probably take a look at the course profile on Saturday and go out and run it on Sunday. I’m slightly encouraged about how I’ve felt in training lately, but really, I don’t have any good reason to think I can run any quicker than a 3:20. My strategy? I’m going to go out and run as hard as I can. The faster I run, the sooner I’m done. The sooner I’m done, the more likely I am to not miss my flight.
Need Your Help!
We’re getting down to the wire here. Only two months left in Operation Jack and I’m coming up on my last chances to make something out of all this effort I’ve put forth. I really, really appreciate everything you guys have done. We’ve raised a lot of money, we’ve grown the charity and we’ve had a lot of fun. It’s been a lot more exhausting for me than you, but it’s still been fun for me in its own way.
Anyways, I need your help. We need to make people aware while we still have time! I made it really easy for you. Click here if you’re on Twitter to send out a tweet that’s already written for you. Two simple clicks to spread the word!
If you’re on Facebook, here’s a simple link for you to click to help spread the word about Operation Jack.
A couple of simple clicks to help make new folks aware. Please? Please? That’s a lot easier than running a marathon … or 61 of them.
Weekly Contest
Normally I have a weekly contest, but right now, instead of raising money for Operation Jack, I’m working to raise money for the Hearts & Smiles Foundation. They were nice enough to give me a race entry into Philadelphia after the raise filled up, plus they help a great cause — siblings of special-needs children in low-income families. We’re not low-income, but we’re on a tight budget and I can’t even imagine what it would be like if my income was considerably lower.
Siblings of special-needs children grow up to be wonderful, loving people, but there’s no question they have challenging childhoods. This is really a great cause and I’m excited to be a part of this.
If you have $3 or $5 you can part with (maybe you’re willing to sacrifice one Starbucks this week), head over to my Hearts and Smiles page to make a difference.
Thank you!
Anybody Want To Run The L.A. Marathon For Free?
Train 4 Autism has what is probably the easiest fundraising program for next year’s Los Angeles Marathon, which will be on March 20. Raise just $300 and you’ll a coaching program and race registration. There’s no obligation to try — if you can’t reach your goal, we don’t charge you.
If you live in a different area of the country and are interested in us bringing this program to your local race, send me an email and let me know!
This Was Pretty Cool
Well, this was more cool to me than it probably will be to you. But last year as a result of Operation Jack, I came in contact a man named Shane Loper, who lives in Mississippi. I caught his eye because of my ambitions for this year. That led him to Train 4 Autism, which he used as a fundraising vehicle during his participation in the Heart O’ Dixie Triathlon.
He raised $4,010 for a pair of local autism-related charities — TEAAM (Together Enhancing Autism Awareness in Mississippi) and Kamp Kaleidoscope, a camp for children with autism spectrum disorders. Budget cuts limited the number of scholarships for the camp, but the money Shane raised helped provide more kids with an opportunity to attend.
He wrote, “After hearing (about funding cuts) and finding Train 4 Autism via Operation Jack, I decided to raise money for Kamp K and TEAAM … Thanks Train 4 Autism, we helped make a few families’ lives a little better!”
Like I said, I’m probably more excited about this than the rest of you. But I just had to share!
OK, That’s All For Today
Have a great Friday. I’ll post a race report at some point Sunday night.