I don’t blog much any more — I don’t have much time and I’ve been waaaaaay too busy with work the second half of this year. But I feel like I need to get something up, if for nothing other than to post this video that ran on the ABC station in Los Angeles yesterday:
I LOVED this piece. You know why? It didn’t even acknowledge my existence! I ran all those marathons last year because I figured I could raise money and awareness for Train 4 Autism. I was right, and I was interviewed a lot. Every story was all about a guy running a lot of marathons. This one, though, was about Jack and the cause. It was all about people coming out and running a race to raise money and fight autism.
I started Operation Jack as my way of fighting autism. I knew I would run a lot of marathons, but I didn’t have a plan. I just had faith in my mission. This will work. I had no idea how. At the end of the last race last year, I told my friend Ben, “I’m so glad this is finally over!” I was so exhausted from all the races and travel and blogging and fundraising and everything else I did. He told me, “Are you kidding me? This is only the beginning!”
My plan evolves every day. I don’t know what I’m going to do, and some days I don’t even have time to think about this. But I still have faith in my mission. This will work. I fight autism, as does Jack. Through Jack, this is what happened yesterday:
– Approximately 380 registered runners at the 2nd Annual Operation Jack Marathon in Manhattan Beach, Calif.
– 40 participants in the 2nd Annual Operation Jack Northwest Challenge in Portland, Oregon.
– 24 participants in the Operation Jack Satellite Marathon/Half Marathon in Houston.
– 15 participants in an Operation Jack Satellite Marathon/Half Marathon in Kabul, Afghanistan (yes, America’s finest were out there participating!).
– More than 50 people participating in satellite runs all over the country.
I haven’t finalized the numbers, but for the day, it looks like everything grossed more than $40,000, and net proceeds will exceed $25,000, benefitting the Operation Jack Autism Foundation and Train 4 Autism. Speaking of my foundation, click that link — I finally got a page up detailing what we’ve done and what we do. To date, Operation Jack has grossed somewhere in the neighborhood of $135,000!
Anyways, I have a lot of work to do, so I won’t get into much more detail about everything today, but I’ll try to post some more tomorrow. Two quick things, though:
1. To everybody who participated everywhere, I can’t thank you enough. I feel so blessed to be in this position to do something to try to make things happen and to know that so many people are on board who want to fight this disorder that plagues my son.
2. I ran a race yesterday and I always post recaps. I’ll just steal my post I put at Dailymile and use it as my recap:
3:29:38. From a running standpoint, I felt terrible physically. But today wasn’t about my time. It was about the ~$40,000 we raised. I fight autism, as does Jack.
That’s all for today, folks. Have a great Tuesday!
Heather Gonzalez says
Those brothers were RAD. We loved seeing them at our station.
My daughter and I had a ton of fun volunteering; can’t wait for next year!
Steve Ton says
Thanks Sam and thanks to all the volunteers at the Houston Satellite run. It was a great race and I am happy to run for a great cause. Will be back next year and I’ll bring some more friends along with me.
chiara says
It was a great event, Sam! I also physically felt a bit spent in the race, but the because it was about running for something bigger than a race performance, it took the pressure off and made the pain somehow a bit more enjoyable ;o)