It’s the second-to-last Monday of Operation Jack! This is kind of like when I was graduating from college. I was excited to be done, but I knew I’d miss it. But I still have to finish up these last two exams. I’m not done yet! I ran in Tucson this weekend and have some things from this weekend to share.

First, just in case you’ve never been here, welcome! I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, 7-year-old Jack, is severely autistic. I wanted to do something to use my running to make a difference, so I’m attempting to run 61 marathons this year to raise money for a charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism. So far, I’m through 59 of the 61. On target!

Went For Broke And I Broke
I tried to P.R. yesterday. I knew it was a longshot, but I didn’t care. I went in with the “go big or go home” mentally. I failed miserably and had an extremely difficult run, but I’ll never wonder what I could have done. As an endurance runner, sometimes you want to fail just so you know you really wrecked yourself. And in a masochistic way, I’m pleased with my run yesterday. But wow, did it hurt! You can read my recap here.

Facebook Status Of The Weekend
My goal time yesterday was 2:59. I ended up blowing up and running a 3:19. My flight back to Los Angeles was scheduled to land at 3 p.m., but it was one minute early. So, I took advantage of the opportunity to update my Facebook status.

How funny … my flight landed at 2:59. I think it should have landed at 3:19 today.

Nobody Can Accuse Me Of Not Taking Care Of My Superstitions
Well, I don’t have a ton of running superstitions, but I looked at three solid indicators heading into Sunday’s race, all involving my PR run, the 2007 Tucson Marathon.

1. Of the four previous times I ran the Tucson Marathon, I only flew in once — my PR race! I drove the other three times. And yes, I flew in this time.

2. I booked a room at an inexpensive motel for this trip without even really checking it out. I mean, for $45 and with a national brand (although honestly, I don’t remember the brand, even though I was there yesterday), I’m good! When I rolled up on Saturday, I realized it was the same place I stayed at in 2007 … for my PR race!

3. The night before my PR race, I had dinner at Pei Wei on Ina Road in Tucson with a runner friend of mine, Jennifer Valentine of Boulder, Colo. On Saturday night, I ate at … Pei Wei with Jennifer! She ran a PR in that 2007 race, too, so she was down for some good luck.

Unfortunately, I think we got a dash of struggles mixed in with our meals. She wanted to run sub-1:20 in the half yesterday and went 1:22. But she’s an amazing runner … 1:22 on a bad day! She’s chasing some lofty goals next month and this was somewhat of a tune-up race. I’m really excited for what’s in store for her!

Anyways, I had everything lined up for this one, obviously. Unfortunately, as is clear when I compare my 2007 Tucson and my 2010 Tucson, I hadn’t run 58 marathons in 2007 prior to my PR race. In fact, I had run eight prior marathons. Heading into yesterday’s run, I had run eight marathons since October 23.

After A Marathon, By A Fence!
I was with my dad after the race yesterday. If you didn’t read my blog a couple of weeks ago about looking for the car after my first marathon, you MUST READ IT! And then you’ll find the humor in this picture.

Operation Jack Marathon and Satellite Run
Let’s go, what are you waiting for? SIGN UP!
– Operation Jack Marathon
– Operation Jack Satellite Run

I’m Doing Another Q&A Session Tomorrow
I already have a bunch of questions, but if you have any that you want to see answered, leave a comment and I’ll answer then in a subsequent Q&A blog.

And that’s all for today, folks! Have a great Monday, see you back tomorrow!

I hope you had a weekend that was half as good as mine. Because if you did, you had a great weekend. Is this how the rest of you live? I can’t wait until next year, when I get to spend two days a week with my family and not working! What a concept!

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 want to try to make a difference, and I want Jack to have an impact on the world, so I’m attempting to run 61 full marathons this year and raise money and awareness for a charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism. I named this endeavor Operation Jack after him, because I wouldn’t be doing this if not for him.

On Friday, I ran marathon No. 56 of the year, the Wishbone Run in Gig Harbor, Wash. It was a pretty challenging run on trails covered by snow, ice and mud. You can read my recap here.

Anyways, I frequently run down my weekend adventures in my blog. Normally, I’m out of town somewhere and I have anecdotes to relay. This weekend, since it was the Thanksgiving holiday and I raced on Friday, I actually got to take two days off and spend time with my family — something I haven’t been able to do since I ran in Texas on Friday, January 1, then flew home that night.

Thanksgiving Day
I spent the day with my family, sleeping in and then eating pumpkin pancakes with my kids. I hate to brag, but my wife Tiffany makes some incredible pumpkin pancakes.

We hit Thanksgiving Dinner #1 at my in-laws’ house, where I loaded up on turkey and stuffing. My father-in-law is a big Cowboys fan, so it was nice watching his team fall down big in a hurry. When I ran my mouth about the score, he asked me if my Kansas City Chiefs cheerleaders were on TV as much as his Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. I told him they had a much better chance of being on TV in January!

We headed over to Thanksgiving Dinner #2 at my parents’ house, which was about a mile away. I loaded up on my stepmom’s sweet potato dish, plus peanut m&ms and ice cream cake. I had to leave straight from there to go to the airport to fly to Seattle, but it wasn’t too terrible, because I knew I was going to be home and on weekend on Friday night.

The flight to Seattle was pretty empty, plus I had free wi-fi. I got a little bit of work done and posted some pictures to Facebook. My dad was amazed I could post pictures to Facebook from a plane. I was more amazed he was on Facebook.

Then I Ran A Race
I already mentioned it earlier in the blog. It was pretty darn tough for me. Oh well, five to go!

One Of The Benefits Of Operation Jack
Just about every week, I get to meet up with people who have been a part of Operation Jack. This week, it was Melissa Gillespie and her family. I met up with them in June when I was up in town for Seattle Rock ‘N Roll. They drove close to 80 miles to see me. This time, I figured I’d head over their way, especially since I had a considerable amount of time.

Melissa is awesome. She’s a mother of three, including a son with autism, so we have a lot in common. She’s always there as a voice of reason for me. I love to throw pity parties for myself, and she’ll always drop me a note behind the scenes that gets me back on the right track.

Her husband Quinton is in the Navy and I didn’t get to meet him in June, but I did on Friday. It was fascinating talking to him about his duties. I won’t get into details, but I’ll just say that I have huge respect for what he does to make sure we can enjoy peace and freedom. Melissa has to make sacrifices, too, and I have a ton of respect for her, too.

Anyways, I told Melissa I wanted to take a picture with him because I had a caption I wanted to write and I doubt I’ll ever have another opportunity to use it.

Cashing In My Birthday Present
Last Monday was my birthday. Tiff bought me a gift certificate for a massage and scheduled a 9 a.m. appointment for me to go in and get it. It was awesome and it came at a perfect time. I was in a ton of pain — much more than normal — after Friday’s race. It hurt for me to roll over in bed! So the massage was pretty nice. I had a sports massage once, but that was it. I had never had a relaxation massage before. The only problem was having to drive afterwards. I was totally groggy!

I Still Have Friends!
About a week ago, I coordinated having a barbecue at my house with a couple of my best friends and their families. Late Saturday morning, we were all on the fence about whether we should have the barbecue or make an In-N-Out run, so we combined the two and had everybody over and brought In-N-Out in! The food was great, the kids all played together, and the grown-ups had a great time hanging out. I’m somewhere in between a kid and a grown up, but I chilled with the big people.

Is this what you guys all do — have friends and spend time with them? It was awesome!

Date Night (Almost)
Tiff and I were going to go to the movies, but babysitting fell through at the last minute due to a family emergency. Everything is fine, but we stayed in. She rented Eat, Pray, Love from Redbox and I’m proud to say that we squashed that after about 20 minutes. What a boring flick!

We hung out, ate nachos for dinner and watched a special about Woodstock on the History Channel, then polished off some mint chocolate chip ice cream. It was nice to hang out with Tiff on a Saturday night. We haven’t done that very often this year.

I Managed Some Shopping On Saturday
From the comfort of my kitchen table, I purchased my airfare to Jacksonville on Saturday night. I now have ZERO airline tickets to purchase the rest of the year! Yeah!

Zinger Of The Week
We went to church as a family on Sunday morning. My race on Friday was on a trail course with tough conditions, so it was the slowest marathon I’ve ever run. We sat with some friends and we sat down, one of them told me, “Wow Sam, good to see you. I didn’t know if you’d still be here or if you were still finishing up that race in Washington.” OUCH!

I got my maple old-fashioned donuts I like and the message was good. This “good weekend” thing was still rolling and I was loving it!

Housecleaning Competition
Tiff took Jack to go grocery shopping and we had some housework to do. The playroom needed to be cleaned, as did the kids’ bedrooms. I had Ben and Ava competing against each other to see who could clean better. I took care of the staircase and then the kitchen. I also snuck in a little bit of the Green Bay-Atlanta game.

They both did pretty well and Tiff was pleasantly surprised when she came in. That’s all that really matters, right?

No Weekend Is Complete Without …
A trip to Home Depot, right? I didn’t do a ton of stuff around the house, but I did fix our front door handle, which was loose, plus I changed out a bad light switch. I also caught some of the Philadelphia-Chicago game.

After I got back from Home Depot and before I did the work, I had lunch with the kids. We had grilled chicken panini sandwiches. Those sandwiches Tiff makes are amazing. Absolutely my favorite sandwich. And she hooked me up with sweet potato fries!

No Weekend Is Complete Without …
A trip to the park, right? I took Ben and Ava yesterday afternoon for a little while. They had a good time. Actually, we had a good time. You know what I’m saying.

And then …
We went to Target, then came back and played with Jack as part of his therapy session for a little while. He was having a blast and was in a great mood. He was getting pretty wild, which was a lot of fun. Tiff made homemade soup for dinner (chicken noodle with chicken) that was pretty good and we ate together, which was nice.

Irony Of Ironies
If you’ve been following along this year, you know I love ice cream. I had a streak of 166 consecutive days eating ice cream or frozen yogurt this year. Well last night, Tiff sent me to the grocery store because she wanted me to pick up ice cream for her! Maybe there’s something in the air in my house and she caught the disease?

She wanted Dreyer’s Candy Cane flavor, but they were out, so I picked her up Dreyer’s Apple Pie instead after texting her to let her know what was available. Good stuff — only 120 calories per serving, plus it has chunks of apple and crust in there.

We put the kids to bed, then chilled on the couch. I wrote this blog, then got some ice cream. She ate ice cream and watched some ridiculous housewives show.

All-in-all, an amazing weekend. I can’t wait for 2011! Is this how y’all live? It was amazing!

Have a great Monday, everybody. I’ll see you back here tomorrow!

Oh, what a weekend. I’m exhausted. I’m not as young as I used to be. This one really wore me out and I don’t even want to think about my next trip out, which is in three days. Wow. I’m writing this on the plane back from Philadelphia. I want to take a nap, but I don’t have time.

Real quick, just in case this your first time here … welcome! And to fill you in, I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, 7-year-old Jack, is severely autistic. I’m attempting to run 61 marathons this year to raise money and awareness for a charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism. So far, I’m through 55. And a couple of ultras. I would absolutely not be doing this if not for him, so I know that his autism is making the world a better place.

I ran the Philadelphia Marathon yesterday (read my recap here). It wasn’t my best or fastest marathon of the year, but I felt like I gave it my all, considering my lousy physical condition heading into the race.

OK, my weekend.

Would It Have Been Faster To Drive?
I left for the airport from the Thanksgiving celebration at Ava’s school. Really, there’s no point in putting that in here other than I wanted to post a picture!

My flight from LA to Philadelphia on Friday was at 2:10 p.m. I got to LAX a little before 1 p.m. I was flying through Atlanta, arriving at 9:25 p.m., then hopping onto a 10 p.m. flight scheduled to land in Philadelphia at 11:57. I would have been asleep by 1 a.m. and had the opportunity to sleep in and recharge on Saturday.

I’ve been sick for close to a week and I’m feeling fairly miserable. Nothing helps quite like sleep. I’m guessing that no sleep isn’t a good thing when you’re sick?

We were about to board the flight when they announced that the captain issued an order preventing people from boarding due to maintenance issues. Hey, no complaints from me on that! About 30 minutes later, they announced that the part we needed had to be flown in to Atlanta. The flight was now scheduled for 9:15 p.m.

I was flying Air Tran, which has various partners and hubs. They told us they had rescheduled everybody’s itinerary. I had a lunch to go to at noon on Saturday in Philadelphia, so I was afraid I’d miss it. I waited in line until 4:30 and found out I was indeed on that 9:15 p.m. flight, arriving in Atlanta at 4:12 a.m. My flight to Philadelphia was scheduled to leave at 8:55 and arrive at 10:51 a.m. At least I’d make the lunch.

While I had time to kill, Operation Jack supporter Jake Rome came and picked me up and showed me the course for the Operation Jack Marathon. I took a picture at the finish line!

I got back to the airport, ate some Burger King, hopped on my plane and got about three hours of lousy sleep while listening to my iPod. I was a zombie when I got to Atlanta. My mom lives there, so I had arranged with her to meet me at the airport for breakfast. I’ve only seen her twice this year, and once was an unexpected visit there when I got bumped from a flight and had a long layover.

Earlier this year, we gave her one of our dogs, because she can provide her with a much better life. Something about empty nest vs. three kids, including one with a disability. So my mom showed up with Holly, we visited for a couple of hours and I went and boarded my flight. If you noticed, there was no nap in all of that.

I couldn’t sleep on my flight, but I finally got to Philadelphia at 10:50 a.m. Eastern time, 20 hours after I left my hometown to drive to LAX. A friend of mine picked me up and we went back to her apartment. We chatted for about 10 minutes max before I left for the lunch I had to go to. After that, I walked to look for a certain souvenir for my oldest son (couldn’t find it, though), then went to the expo and walked around for a little bit, but I felt numb and faint from the exhaustion.

I sat down on a concrete floor, leaning up against a wall, letting my friend do a little shopping. She came and got me, we walked back to her place and I took a nap for a couple of hours. I couldn’t tell you the last time I was that exhausted.

I Finally Missed Something Important
I’ve done a pretty good job of not missing things this year. Despite jetting all around the country, I’ve been home for all the birthday parties, birthdays, my wedding anniversary, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Independence Day fireworks, trick-or-treating, first day of kindergarten for Ava, back-to-school nights for the kids, Benjamin’s only goal of the season in soccer, etc.

I’ve been away a lot, but I’ve made a lot out of the time I’ve been home. This Saturday was Ben’s last soccer game — his team was in the playoffs and this was the championship game. There was a good chance of rain, and if the game got postponed, it would have been played either Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday of this week.

I kept my eye on the forecast and there was a a 70 percent chance of rain. I was hoping I’d luck out on this one. I was texting with my wife Tiffany about the weather. It rained all night, but it stopped in the morning. But then it started again and it was pouring pretty nicely. I’m on the email distribution list with Ben’s coach and I was waiting eagerly for that cancellation email.

But 90 minutes before game time, he let us know that it was still on. I was hopeful that they’d cancel the game, but I was getting kind of anxious. Tiff was texting me pictures of the downpour and I couldn’t see how they would possibly play the game. I was cautiously optimistic.

They got out there, and there were teams playing another game. At that point, I knew I was going to be out of luck. They were doing whatever they could to play the games. I was so bummed knowing I’d miss the game. This was the first big miss of the year for me and it really made me sad. I know I’m doing what I’m doing for a good cause, but that doesn’t make it any easier to not be there, especially when Ben begged me to make it to the game earlier this week.

The game went on and Ben’s team won, 2-0. I got pictures of the trophy presentations and they all had a blast. That was going on at the same time I was leaning up against that wall while sitting on the concrete floor at the expo. For lack of a better word, it sucked.

Oh well. I’m glad they won.

Other Misc. Stuff
I ate a cheesesteak for lunch yesterday. I guess that makes up for not having pizza in Chicago. Also, I’m just sneaking this in here to see if anybody actually reads this whole thing, but I was born on November 22, 1974. Now you know.

The Long Road Home
On October 31, it took me 4 1/2 hours to fly home from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles. Yesterday, apparently there were really strong headwinds. It took us about 2:15 for the first leg of the flight back, Philadelphia to Chicago. Chicago to Los Angeles took FIVE HOURS. I can’t even begin to tell you how tired I was.

That’s All For Today
Like I mentioned, I wrote this on the plane last night. And I was tired. And I needed to take a nap before driving home. So that’s all for this one. I’ll see you back here tomorrow. Maybe?

What I’m eating, what Jack’s eating, living on the edge and cracking bad jokes. Yep, that’s my weekend in a nutshell.

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 wanted to do something to try to make a difference as one way of dealing with this and making sure he has an impact on the world. So, I’m attempting to run 61 marathons this year in his honor to raise money and awareness for a charity called Train 4 Autism.

I named the endeavor Operation Jack, after my son, and this weekend I ran marathon No. 54 of the year in San Antonio (read my recap here). Seven more to go!

Don’t Try This At Home
Yesterday after the race, I went to lunch and had a nice time with a group of people I was with. I let time slip away from without realizing how tight my schedule was getting. After paying the bill, we went to the house I was staying at and I was able to shower, pack and get out the door within 15 minutes. We hit a little bit of traffic on the way to the airport, though, and I was convinced I was going to miss my flight.

There were 28 minutes until departure, and we were still a little ways away. So, I texted my wife Tiffany and told her I was probably going to miss my flight. I didn’t have my boarding pass, and airlines usually don’t let you reprint those with less than 30 minutes to go. For some reason, I was unusually calm about the situation. Normally, I’d be stressed, but I realized it was totally out of my control, so why worry?

I had a 3:05 departure and I got dropped outside of Southwest at 2:45. I went to the self-serve kiosk and with my luck, I had to stand behind the guy who couldn’t figure out how to retrieve his reservation. So, I did a power walk up towards the front by the agents and surprisingly, the system let me re-print my boarding pass.

Meanwhile, Tiff is texting me telling me not to worry, that if I missed my plane, she wouldn’t be mad. She didn’t want me stressing. I did a mad dash over to security, and I was going to ask to use the first-class line, because I had about 15 minutes until my flight, but there was no first-class line. So I waited and got through in about three minutes.

There were about five x-ray lines, so I picked what I thought was the shortest one. I was ready to fly through — I had everything in hand that needed to be out of my bag before I even walked in the terminal. There was a couple struggling to get everything into their bins, but they let a couple of guys go in front of them. I had my stuff ready to go and was about to go next and speed the process along, but they figured it out and I had to wait for 45 seconds that seemed like 45 minutes.

I got through security and ran through the terminal (always fun to do on marathon days) to get to the gate. I asked the agents if I missed the flight. They asked me my last name and I told them. They said I was good. I kept running to get in line, they took my boarding pass and I was in the jetway. I texted Tiff at 2:56 and told her I made the flight. She was pretty happy, to say the least.

So, in case you were wondering, yes, you can show up 20 minutes before your flight in San Antonio and still get on your plane. But take my word for it and don’t try it yourself!

I like to take pictures of food
I like to take pictures of food and I like cheeseburgers. If you’ve been here before, you know that. Several months ago, Lisa Hernandez told me that when I was in San Antonio, I had to go to a place called Chris Madrid’s for a cheeseburger. You might remember Lisa — I personally delivered In-N-Out to her in February in Austin. We’ve talked a little bit since then and she’s really nice. So, I didn’t pass up the opportunity to eat a cheeseburger recommended by somebody who has enough taste to have In-N-Out flown in.

So, I met up with a good group of people, including Lisa, and had a great cheeseburger. And of course, I took a picture of it.

Jack Update
Well, I talked about what I’ve been eating. More important than that is what Jack’s been eating. As you know, we changed up his routine after visiting a DAN doctor in the spring. We had him on a casein-free diet based on his reactions to various foods. We switched him to gluten-free, though — that’s what he needs. We also have him on a pretty tight supplement regimen. Between shots and creams and things we give him orally with a syringe and things we sneak into his drinks, he gets 27 different things.

It’s a huge job for Tiff, who leads the effort on this in our home. She has a ridiculous chart on the fridge so we know we don’t miss anything. She’s become close enough with the people at the compound pharmacy that she bakes them banana bread. We knew doing this for Jack would be a huge undertaking, but she committed to do this for at least a year to give him a chance.

So far, after a few months, his insides have really improved. He’s in a lot less pain, which has reduced the meltdowns and frustrations. All-in-all, he’s been a lot happier. That helps him in all aspects of his life. He sleeps better, he interacts with us better, he does better in his therapy. It’s been a great decision so far.

One thing that we’re really excited about right now is that he’s starting to be a little more willing to try various foods. Last week, he tried two new foods for the first time — brown rice and baked chicken breast. He’s a pretty picky eater and for years, we’ve watched him get just about all of his protein from pepperoni, salami and hot dogs. I talk about how I like to eat cheeseburgers, but all-in-all, Tiff and I eat pretty healthy and we hate seeing him eat such bad foods. This came as a wonderful surprise for us.

On a much less exciting note, we have an IEP for him this week. If you don’t know what an IEP is, be grateful. If you do know, let’s just say that we’re not going to be making any friends in there. I’m curious to see how it goes. I have some opinions I feel very strongly about and I’m pretty stubborn.

Am I Funny?
I went to Pei Wei for lunch on Friday. If you’ve never been, it’s a Chinese place that’s owned by P.F. Chang’s, but it’s a little bit quicker. You order up front, get a number for your table and they bring your food out. The soda fountain is self-serve, and there’s a big bucket of fortune cookies there for the taking.

I like to clown around, so when I got up to order, I had a really serious look on my face and asked the girl at the register, “Do I need to order off the menu, or is it cool if I just have 50 fortune cookies and a water?” I paused for a few seconds to let her wonder if I was being serious and she didn’t know how to respond. So I told her I was kidding and ordered the spicy Korean chicken.

Tiff doesn’t think I’m funny. I don’t think she’d know funny if she was married to it for 11 1/2 years.

Operation Jack Marathon
We’re having the Operation Jack Marathon on December 26 in Manhattan Beach, Calif. It’s going to be the 61st and final marathon of this endeavor and it should be a lot of fun. I’d love for all of you to be there. If you’re in Southern California, make it happen!

If you’re not local, though, we have another great option. We’re going to have satellite runs. Wherever you are, run 6.1 miles on December 26 — it’s one last opportunity to participate in Operation Jack and spread the word about Train 4 Autism. Participants will receive a t-shirt and the same race medal that Operation Jack Marathon participants will receive. The cost is $25, although if you set up a fundraising page and raise just $30, that fee will be waived.

– Information about the Operation Jack Marathon
– Information about the satellite runs

OK, That’s All For Today
Have a great Monday, everybody! I’ll see you back here tomorrow!