Normally, I run a weekend recap on Mondays and move into 10 random things on Tuesdays. But my wife, Tiffany, wanted to write a guest blog for yesterday, so I ran that instead. Plus, my weekend was inadvertently extended a day, so I’m just going to go ahead and run my weekend recap today. I have a tiny bit of information about the Chase Community Giving contest we’ve been involved in, but for the most part, I’m going to cover that in-depth tomorrow.

Just in case this is your first time being here, I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, 6 1/2-year-old Jack, is severely autistic. Fighting autism is my cause and I’m trying to run 60 marathons this year to raise money and awareness for a charity called Train 4 Autism. It’s a great charity headed by great parents and I’m proud to be a part of it.

So far, I’m through 33 of the 60 races. It seems like I’m reaching people and raising money and getting people involved, so it’s worth the pain I’m feeling in my lower back.

If you’ve been following along at all, you know we’ve been in this Chase Community Giving contest, with an opportunity to win $20,000. The voting ended last night and it went down to the wire, but unofficially, we did it! Results will be official sometime around noon Eastern today and I’ll update this blog with a confirmation.

This was an amazing contest, though. Everybody came out of the woodwork and pushed so hard to make this happen. It was incredible, and the net result is going to be that Train 4 Autism will gain an additional $20,000 at the end of the year. This is one of those “this is why I do this” moments for me. And for all of you, who pushed so hard, that should be a “this is why I did that” moment, too. Y’all are the ones who made it happen.

Real quick, two TV stations up in Missoula did pieces on me this weekend. Here’s one of them. I’ll get the other one posted as soon as I get the link.

Bound To Happen?
If you would have asked me at the beginning of the year whether or not I thought I would miss a flight, I would have probably guessed yes. With tight schedules and about 45 or so weekends flying somewhere, chances are it would happen once.

Well, that once came this weekend. I flew through Spokane to get to Missoula, Montana, and it’s about a three-hour drive. I ran tight on time after the race and when I got into the car, I plugged in the airport in Spokane to get an estimated arrival time. I had enough time to eat lunch, so I quickly did that. I only had 9 1/2 hours of sleep the prior two nights and I had just run a marathon, so I wanted to load up on Diet Pepsi at Taco Bell and get some caffeine into my system for the drive.

Lunch took about 15 minutes and I got rolling on the drive. The GPS system said I’d be in about 40 minutes before the flight, but as is always the case, I made up some time on the drive. Unfortunately, my fat fingers hit the wrong airport and I ended up at some commuter airport, easily costing myself about 20 minutes.

I got to the airport 35 minutes before my flight. The rental return guy was going in slow-mo and took a good 6 or 7 minutes to get me taken care of. I made a mad dash to get my boarding pass, but it was about 2:51 and my flight was at 3:05 and the woman at the counter told me I was too late. And with my luck, it was the last flight out for the day.

Southwest had an option to get me home for $382, but that was way too much. So, I got to spend Sunday night in Spokane. The bummer of it all is that Tiff went out to see one of her best friends in Arizona who just had a baby and left yesterday morning. So, I didn’t get to see her and I won’t see her until Wednesday night. We had to make some adjustments with our arrangements for the kids, because we were both out of town between yesterday morning at 5 a.m. and yesterday afternoon at 3:30 p.m.

Plus, I have to miss work on Friday to go to Iowa and I didn’t want to miss two days this week. I was able to work a little bit while traveling on Monday, but I couldn’t get a good, full day in.

In hindsight, I would have certainly hit the right button on the GPS and just driven through someplace and probably gotten to the airport more than hour before my flight. I probably would have been fine eating at Taco Bell and getting to the airport 55 minutes or so in advance — Spokane is a pretty easy airport to get through, nice and small.

US Airways was really nice about it and hooked me up at a hotel with a “distressed traveler” rate that was walking distance from the terminal. The hotel confirmed the rate and tried to overcharge me $30 when I got there, but I negotiated them down to “only” a $12 overcharge. The folks at US Airways were gone for the day since my flight was the last one of the day, so I was out of luck and stuck. I’ll be taking that up with the hotel’s corporate headquarters this week.

So I just stayed in the hotel, plowing away on my race report and my vote-getting campaign for Chase. At least the complimentary breakfast was good in the morning. I love those waffle machines that you pour the batter into. And I love me some four cups of coffee.

So yeah, it was bound to happen. I just wish it would have happened on a) a Saturday when b) there was another flight out that day and c) my wife wasn’t going out of town for three days before I could get in and d) it wasn’t causing me to miss a day of work in an already-short week.

Life. Gotta love it!

I Admit It, I’m A Dork
I went to Missoula, Mont. over the weekend, flying through Spokane, Wash. From there, I drove 200 miles, cutting through the top of Idaho. In case you haven’t noticed (60 marathons in a year, 163 consecutive days eating ice cream at this point), I like doing odd things. So, for a couple of weeks, I planned on running a mile in California before I left for the airport, then a mile in Washington, a mile in Idaho and a mile in Montana.

I did, because … why not?

Here they are:
– California
– Washington
– Idaho
– Montana

Not A Lot Of Excitement This Weekend
There’s really not a whole lot to report about from this weekend other than the missed flight. I got up, went to the airport, flew to Washington, drove to Missoula and had a TV reporter waiting for me at my motel when I got there (after I drove through Taco Bell). I got to my room after finishing the interview at about 9:30 p.m.

After running the race, I talked to a couple of friends in the finish area, did two interviews, went and visited a couple of friends at a bar for about 15 minutes before going back to my hotel to get cleaned up. Then it was the lunch/drive/missed flight. Life on the road isn’t too glamorous. EXCEPT when you drive from Spokane to Missoula.

I highly recommend the Missoula Marathon. It’s put on well, there were no logistical challenges and the course was absolutely beautiful. When you do it, do yourself a favor and fly through Spokane, not Missoula. That drive is absolutely amazing. Sure, I missed my flight because of it, but it was worth it. I took some pictures, but they don’t do that area justice. I want to go back next year just to bring my wife and show her the drive.

Anyways, here are some pics:

There were more tall trees lining those mountains than I could have imagined. There were some nice parts of the drive in Idaho where the water, but I guess I didn’t get any pictures. I guess you’ll just have to trust me when I say it was the nicest 200-mile drive I’ve ever taken.

By the way, speaking of my friends I talked to at the bar after the race, here’s a picture I took with Operation Jack supporter Chris Stores, a runner I’ve communicated with for several years.

Pray For Me
I’m Mr. Mom until tomorrow night. I’m outnumbered, 3 to 1. We all do certain things well. I run marathons, my wife is Supermom. Actually, pray for my kids!

OK, That’s All For Today
I’ll be back here tomorrow with some thoughts about this Chase Community Giving contest. It’s done now, but still, to be in my shoes and experience what I experienced going through this was amazing and it deserves a blog. You guys are AWESOME. Period.

With three days of weekend to cover in a weekend recap blog, I could write about 10,000 words. But I’d rather let 11 pictures do most of the talking — that’s worth 11,000 words, right? I’ll still write a little bit and throw some bad jokes your way, though. Happy first day of a short week!

Real quick, 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 want to try to make a difference in the autism community, so I’m trying to run 60 marathons this year to raise money for a great charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism. So far, so good. 32 down, 28 to. I ran the Foot Traffic Flat Marathon in Portland, Oregon’s Sauvie Island on Sunday. If you want to read about what it’s like to run a marathon when you’d rather run zero miles, check out my race recap.

I Need Your Help!
As you can probably tell by the banner you hit on your way to the site today, I really, really need your help in the Chase Community Giving contest. 200 charities will receive $20,000 each and I’d really love for us to be one of those charities. It’s getting down to the wire — the contest has less than a week to go and there’s not a lot votes separating the last 50 charities in the top 200.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, if you haven’t voted, please CLICK HERE and vote! And whether or not you’ve voted, PLEASE share on Facebook and share on Twitter! If just 20 of you share it on Facebook and Twitter and bring in 15 people each, that’s probably going to put us over the top. So please, be one of those 20 people! Thank you!

My Weekend Started Off On A Down Note
I was homesick before I even left. I didn’t want to go, I wasn’t in the mood to run, and while I was gone, I heard about some fun times my wife was having with my kids. It was tough and I was having an episode of, “why did I sign up for this and is this really worth it?” again.

Last summer, a friend of mine, Jeff Cate, told me, “I have a feeling this whole Operation Jack is going to be a huge test in selflessness. You’re going to face lots of disappointment along the way (whether in marathon performances, support, etc.). But you’ll have to keep on keeping on … more so than ever before.

Be prepared to say, I don’t care if I only have 1 person supporting me (let’s say Tiff), and only $10 in support… I’m still gonna run 60 marathons because I love Jack. That alone would be worth it all.”

I think I hit that point mentally this weekend, and I’m not so sure I passed the test as well as I could have or should have. And really, I’m not fishing — I’m just letting you know how I feel. But I’m human and I’ll try better this week.

Anyways, I got to Oregon and got to go see an old college friend of mine named Stacy. I hadn’t seen her in a good 15 years, so we had a nice lunch and got to catch up. I had to drive four hours round-trip to the Oregon coast, but it was worth it. It was great to see her, plus there’s nothing quite like driving from Portland to Lincoln City. I’ve seen a lot of America this year, and Oregon is probably the most beautiful part I’ve seen.

I drove back and met up with a guy who’s a crazy marathon runner kind of like me named Steve Walters. He’s a nice guy and it was good to meet him. I forgot to take a picture at dinner, but we took one after the race on Sunday.

Steve told me that Nike headquarters were less than a mile from where we had dinner. So after dinner, I cruised by and took a couple of pictures.

After Nike and checking into the hotel, I went to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the Brock Lesnar – Shane Carwin fight. I can’t stand Lesnar and was excited to see Carwin get him in trouble in the first round. But when Lesnar got him on the ground the way he did in the second, I knew it wasn’t going to happen. Oh well.

Speaking real quick about my hotel, if you remember me talking about the fleabag motel that pretty much caused me to be sleepless in Seattle last week, well, this week was the opposite. I got a bargain on Travelocity and this room had two flatscreens, a room divider, a nice couch … too bad I only spent about 90 minutes awake in there.

Anyways, after the race on Sunday, I met up with Operation Jack supporter Katey Williamson. We played email tag, text tag and phone tag, but we finally got to meet up and chat for 15 or 20 minutes. As is the case with virtually every Operation Jack supporter I’ve met, she’s super nice.

She recommended that I eat at a place called Burgerville. I guess that’s a chain local to Portland. It was decent, but In-N-Out is better (like you’d expect me to say anything else).

I wanted to go to a place called Voodoo Donuts afterwards, and I actually did go, but the line was too long and I had to go to the airport. Incredible donuts are worth missing a flight for, but not if I need to take my kids to see fireworks.

So I got home before dark, nice empty flight. I had my own row! We took the kids to see fireworks. There’s a park with a pretty good view in our city that we go to and we saw about 10 shows from all the Orange County cities. It was pretty cool. But the highlight was when the sprinklers in the park went off and got us wet. We’d seen about 25 minutes of fireworks, so we took off, dashing through the park, laughing all the way! Wait, wrong holiday.

Monday I was off wok and we decided to take a family day, which was AWESOME. We went to a place called Boomers where we did go carts, miniature golf, bumper boats and all that kind of stuff. Jack went on the go carts with Tiff, but didn’t have much fun. He had a blast on the bumper boats.

I got to play golf with Ben (Ava was the caddy) with Tiff and Jack tagging along, I rode the go carts with Ben and with Ava, plus I got to do the bumper boats with Jack. It was a ton of fun. And here’s the pictures:

Oh, and the best news of all … I just found out yesterday that on August 3, my grandparents are moving to an assisted living facility about 5 minutes from my work and less than 20 minutes from my house. They’re about 45 minutes away right now, so it’s tougher to see them. I’m so excited, you have no idea. Their quality of life is going to go way up, and selfishly, I’m going to be able to see them all the time.

So, my weekend started out miserably, but it ended up wonderfully. Life is good. I hope your weekend ended up as well as mine!

Happy Tuesday, y’all. I’ll have 10 random things for you tomorrow!

Normally, I post a weekend recap on Mondays. But I went with a Father’s Day edition of my blog instead. When I go with something different on Mondays, I run the weekend recap on Tuesdays. But on Monday night, I didn’t have time to write a blog (you’ll see why in a bit), so I’m finally getting to some of these things today.

So anyways, here’s my standard introduction, just in case you’ve never been here before. I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, 6 1/2-year-old Jack, is severely autistic. I’m attempting to run 60 full marathons this year to raise money and awareness for a charity called Train 4 Autism. So far, so good. I’m raising money, bringing people into the charity and I’ve completed 30 of the 60 races. Only 30 to go!

Moving along, …

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’re ranked somewhere around 60 or so.

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!

Why It’s Called Grandma’s Marathon
If you’re not too deep into the marathon community, you might not know a lot about Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minn., which I ran on Saturday. It sounds like some small-time race in the middle of nowhere, but it’s actually a pretty big race. It’s not a top-tier major like Boston, New York or Chicago, but it’s as big of a deal as just about any other race in the country.

The race is put on very well, it’s a nice course, and they get some extremely fast elites in there. 2:20 doesn’t get you in the top 10 at Grandma’s. Anyways, it got it’s name from a restaurant right near the finish called … shoot, I don’t remember. Oh yeah — it’s called Grandma’s. I took a picture of it because, well, I was there and I had my camera.

Hanging Out In The Dorms!
The one downside about Grandma’s Marathon is that all the hotels raise their prices a ton. Rooms are $200+ for dive motels. The University of Minnesota-Duluth (I think that’s what it’s called) charges something like $189 for two nights for a dorm room. But the University of Wisconsin-Superior, which is about a mile from Duluth, offers a dorm room for $100/night, and checkout isn’t until 6 p.m.

So, that’s where I stayed. It was awesome, in a I-got-to-turn-back-the-clock kind of way. I lived in the dorms for two summers at Kansas State and had a ton of fun. When I walked into the room on Friday night, it had same type of old, sturdy dorm furniture I remembered. It had an old, musty odor that I hadn’t smelled in 13 years. I had to shower in the community restroom down the hall. There were goofball college students manning the front desk downstairs.

It was awesome. I wanted to bust out a fake ID, but I don’t have one any more.

I Took A Picture, Otherwise You Wouldn’t Believe It
I saw a liquor store in Minnesota advertising free wi-fi. I wanted to go in there, hang out and write my race report, but I was in a hurry to get to the airport.

Monday Night: Family Movie Night!
On Monday night, we took the kids to the movies. That’s not that big of a deal to most families. But it was for us. It was Ava’s first trip to the movies. AND, it was Jack’s first trip to the movies! We have someone who helps us with Jack and she came along just in case.

He started to throw a little bit of a fit on the way in, because we made him leave a musical toy in the car. He had no clue what he was in store for, so he was a little upset. When we got into the theater, though, he was fine. He had a good time eating popcorn and Good & Plenty’s and actually sat still and had fun for about an hour.

However, he got a little restless after a while. He stood up and started spinning around to get dizzy and fall over. Then, he started shouting, “Juhhh gray!”, which is his way of saying “Just great!” He learned that from a movie or TV show. We like hearing that, because when he says that, he’s in a good mood. Anyways, he started to get a bit frustrated, so our helper had to take him out for a little bit of a walk. When she brought him back in, he wasn’t having it. So she took him home and put him to bed.

But he had a great time. So did Ava, although she’s not great at the whole “whisper” concept. It was a great time, though. We don’t get opportunities like that very often, so it was a pretty cool deal.

Oh, My Silly Work
They had a surprise ice cream party for me yesterday to celebrate me completing 30 of the 60 marathons. It was very nice, but I’m really shy about praise and to have everybody focusing on me like that was pretty embarrassing! Still, it was pretty cool and nice of them to do that.

They shipped in ice cream from a place called Graeter’s and it was ridiculously good. I could tell it was going to be good when I read the label. Normally, the ice cream I eat has about 130 or 140 calories in it per half a cup. This stuff had 310 calories! It was amazing. I had cookie dough flavored ice cream with cupcake flavored Magic Shell. As George Strait would say, there’s a difference between living and living well. That was living well.

OK, That’s All For Today
My wife tells me my blogs have been too long lately. And I’m getting tired (I write these the night before). So that’s all. Have a great Wednesday!

Normally, Mondays are when I write a weekend recap in my blog. But since yesterday was Father’s Day, I’m going with a Father’s Day special. I’ll have a weekend recap tomorrow and 10 random things on Wednesday.

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’ve wanted to make a difference in the autism community, and I do fairly well recovering from marathons, so I came up with this idea of running 60 marathons this year to try to raise money and awareness for a charity called Train 4 Autism. I ran the idea by my wife and she made the decision that we’d do it (I say “we”, because it’s a family effort — not just me). No sense looking back and wondering what if. And no sense not stepping up when somebody needed to step up — I’ve been given a gift, so it would be a waste to not take advantage of it. We named the endeavor Operation Jack, after our special guy.

So far, so good, kind of. I’m on schedule with the races. On Saturday, I completed my 30th marathon of the year, struggling through Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minn. I’m building chapters and raising money. I’m not hitting the numbers I’d hoped for, but I think I’m making a difference and if you look at the spelling of my last name (F-e-l-s-e-n-f-e-l-d), you won’t find a “q-u-i-t”. So, I carry on. With Operation Jack and with this blog.

As I Mentioned, Father’s Day Edition
Ok, so Father’s Day is a big day to me. My dad is a very special guy to me. I’m not going to say he did a perfect job raising me, because nobody is perfect. But he sure did try his best and I think he did a great job. I’ve always thought that, but I feel like I can say that more confidently now that I’m 35. Speaking of which, even though I’m halfway to 70, he hasn’t stopped being a dad. I remember when Tiffany was pregnant with our first child, Benjamin, we were worried about him reaching 12 weeks and then 20 and then 32. The worrying was making me sick, so I asked him when that would stop. “I don’t know,” he told me. “You’re 26 and I haven’t stopped. But when I do, I’ll let you know.”

Anyways, his dad, my Grandpa Milt, is still around, which I’m so grateful for. He’s everything you want your grandpa to be. Incredibly loving and friendly. We named Jack after his dad as a tribute to him. Quick funny story: My dad’s grandpa’s name was Jack Felsenfeld, and now that’s his grandson’s name. The first time my dad saw Jack, he picked him up and said, “Well, well, well … Jack Felsenfeld … who’s the grandpa now?”

OK, so for Father’s Day, a few weeks ago, Tiffany asked me what I wanted to do, so I told her that I didn’t care, as long as I could get together with my dad and my grandpa and the kids. So that’s what we did. It was also my brother’s birthday, so we had a family get-together at a restaurant that was pretty nice. We took this picture afterwards, and it’s one of my favorite pictures ever.

My grandfather on my mom’s side passed away in 1983 when I was only 9. I remember him, but he barely got a chance to know me and didn’t see me grow up like my Grandpa Milt did. I was at a funeral last year in the same cemetery he’s buried in (along with my grandmother he was married to, who passed in 1982). I went over and visited their graves and couldn’t help but wonder what they think of me and my family as they look down on us. Someday I’ll get a chance to ask.

So moving along, I never used to feel like I deserved Father’s Day gifts from my kids, because I didn’t feel like I did a good enough job as a dad. Every year, it was the same story. I would talk to Tiff after the kids went to bed and get upset, because I didn’t feel like I deserved anything. I wanted to be a better dad and earn the holiday.

But I’m finally starting to like Father’s Day as it applies towards me. I don’t want to say that I’m a good dad, because I think that’s such a huge, important compliment, and I’m not about to be so arrogant as to bestow that upon myself. But I believe that I try hard and my kids are well off with me around. I know they like me, I know I fight for all three of them, and I know the most important thing I’ll ever do on this planet is raise them to be good people.

It was nice to spend yesterday with them (that’s why I picked Grandma’s Marathon — I wanted to be home for Father’s Day) and I feel like I deserved to celebrate. Tiff and I struggle with time and finances, and we struggle with Jack’s issues, but I really feel like I am so blessed to be a father. I am so blessed to be their father. I frequently take a step back, I look at what I have, I think, “this is the life God has chosen for me,” and I’m pretty happy about that.

My Father’s Day Started Friday
Ava is in the same preschool that Ben went to for his last year of preschool, and she’s been there for three years now, so I’m pretty used to the routine. On the Friday before Father’s Day, they have something called “Donuts With Dad”. They bring in donuts, the dads eat with the kids, then go out to the playground for a few minutes before heading inside to hear the kids sing a cute little song.

Then, we head to the classroom, where we get the artsy-craftsy gifts the kids made. Tiff gets Muffins With Mom, I get Donuts With Dad. We have this routine down.

So when I was planning my flight to Minnesota, I definitely planned it around that. Unfortunately, it did a number on my travel schedule. Instead of a direct flight from John Wayne Airport, which is about 20 minutes from my house, I got to drive more than an hour to Ontario and I had to switch planes. Minneapolis is a 2 1/2-hour drive from Duluth, so on the way there, due to the later flight, I got into town at about 11 p.m. the night before the race instead of early in the afternoon. And on the way back, instead of a direct flight into John Wayne and a quick drive to be home before 8 p.m., I got to switch planes, fly to Ontario and make the drive home.

Nothing like a marathon on 5 hours of sleep, a 2 1/2 hour drive to the airport, two flights to get home and then an hour drive to finally walk through my front door about 20 hours after I woke up. But I wouldn’t miss Donuts With Dad for anything!

On Wednesday, Ava woke up before I got back from my run and told Tiff she wanted to talk to me. So when I got in, she told me (in her cute little voice) that she really wanted me to go to Donuts With Dad. She so totally owns me, it’s not even funny. Of course I was going, and I told her that if I had to, I would miss one of my Operation Jack trips before I missed going to her school. On Friday morning, I took Jack to school and then came back home. She woke up while I was out and was so upset when she asked Tiff where I was and found out I was gone. She thought I had already gone on my trip!

But we made it to Donuts With Dad. Between the two of us, we ate three donuts. She had a half a donut. We played on the playground, they sang their song and I got my gifts. One of the items was a framed poem with one of her handprints. The poem talked about her growing older and me being able to keep her little handprint around as a reminder. I’ll admit it — I started getting a little watery-eyed.

I don’t have a favorite kid. But I do have a favorite daughter!

My First Born
Benjamin misbehaved quite a bit on my birthday last year. Kids are kids and you can’t expect them to be perfect, but he sure did misbehave that day. So the first time he slipped yesterday, we told him gently not to do to Father’s Day what he had done to my birthday.

He had a few slip-ups, and he started to get a little silly at dinner, but all-in-all, he had a good day. When I tucked him in at bedtime, I told him that nobody can possibly be perfect — not me and not him. I also told him that while neither of us were perfect yesterday, he was still well-enough behaved. We both agreed that he’s a good kid, that I wasn’t perfect and we had a nice day.

We used to butt heads a lot when he was going through his “terrible” phase about five or six years ago and when I was worse at this parenthood thing than I am now. But it’s gotten infinitely better and he’s a great son.

And Of Course, There’s Jack
Do I really need to go into detail about Jack here? I have no idea what he understands, although I’ve been told by his therapists that he understands a lot more than we think he does. When I tuck him in at night, I frequently tell him that I’m proud of him for how hard he works to fight through everything, because I am. I also tell him I’ll always have his back and I’ll take care of him until the day I die, because I will.

That’s All For Today
Sorry the blog was a little long. That’s what was on my mind today, though. I’ll see you tomorrow with a weekend recap. Have a great Monday, everybody!

What a weekend! The race, the course, the people I met, and the spare time I had to spend with my family. If every weekend was like this, Operation Jack would be a piece of cake! Well, aside from the downhills I ran on Saturday that have my quads feeling like trash right now. By the way, you’re never going to guess who I caught wearing a snuggie on Saturday!

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. Because of what he goes through, fighting autism is my cause and I wanted to try to make a difference. So, what I’m doing is trying to run 60 marathons this year to raise money and awareness for a charity called Train 4 Autism.

So far, so good. I’m reaching people, raising money and I’ve run 29 of my 60 scheduled marathons so far. On Saturday, I was the official 3:40 pacer for the Utah Valley Marathon. You can read my recap here. A picture of my Garmin from after the race should give you a pretty good indication of how I did:

So anyways, on with the weekend …

The First Thing I Did On My Weekend Was … Work!
I had to leave work a couple of hours early to catch my flight to Salt Lake City, but the plane had wifi. I always check in my browser to see if there’s any kind of promo, and sure enough, there was — by watching a 30-second FedEx commercial, I got free wifi for the flight! So I got to debug some code, upload some changes, telnet into my server and send some shell commands … I was in geek heaven and I got two parts of a project done that I’m working on. It was awesome!

Nothing Beats Meeting Great People
This whole Operation Jack thing is totally exhausting, but it’s certainly a unique, once-in-a-lifetime experience. One of the greatest benefits is that I get to meet great people on a weekly basis. On Friday and Saturday in Utah, I got to meet Alicia Verburg. I came in contact with her through the blogging community and we’ve talked a bit over the past few months.

She started up a chapter of Train 4 Autism in Utah and is very enthusiastic about the cause. My goal with Operation Jack, in addition to raising money, is to bring a lot of good people into the charity. When I see people start chapters and get involved, it’s the ultimate confirmation that what I’m doing is working. Alicia is a lot like me. She’s very passionate in the cause, she strongly believes in the Train 4 Autism model, and she wants to do whatever she can to make a difference.

Also, like me, she’s not exactly sure how to do that, but she’s going to try her best. On Friday night, I went straight from the airport to the expo, where she was manning the Train 4 Autism table. We spent a good 30-40 minutes talking and brainstorming ideas. I also talked to her some more after the race on Saturday at the Train 4 Autism booth.

When I talked to her afterwards, she said she had been excited about Train 4 Autism, but meeting me was exciting because it made everything “come to life.” Well, it’s the same way for me when I meet people like Alicia. I sit on my couch and write my blogs, then travel to races and travel back home. But when I meet people like her who are going to do a great job building a good chapter, I get excited because that’s how I see things come to life.

She’s talking about running the Utah Valley Marathon next year, and we talked about some ways to get a big team formed. If we can make that happen, I’m going to do everything I can to get back out there.

I’m running 60 marathons this year. If I bring 20 Alicias into Train 4 Autism by the time the year is over, it will all be worth it.

But Wait … There’s More!
I also got to meet somebody named Ryan Sullivan. I started talking to him through Twitter. We’ve conversed through Twitter and e-mail. He’s lost a ton of weight recently … I asked him, but my memory is kind of hazy, so I’m not sure how much. Maybe 100 pounds? He really digs what I’m doing and I told him to come out and say hello since he was in my neck of the woods.

I saw him after the race and he said hi, but I wasn’t putting 2 and 2 together when he said hi. I just gave him a generic “hey!” and he identified himself by his ID on Twitter (@nomorebacon). 10 years ago, that kind of a thing would probably qualify you as a geek, but in 2010, that’s how the world works. I’d seen pictures of him, so I knew there was a reason he looked familiar.

He has a son who has autism and he’s also pretty excited about Train 4 Autism. He wouldn’t have heard about us if not for my 60-marathon stunt, which is why I’m doing this. I still have some emails to send, but I’m going to put him in touch with Alicia so they can really get rolling.

I got to spend a fair amount of time talking to him and his wife Jackie and I got to see his two little boys. He had all sorts of nice things to say, but as always, I deflected the praise. As I told him, I’m not the one who gave myself the ability to recover well after marathons. I’ve been given a gift, and all I’m doing is taking advantage of it. I truly believe that and I’ll tell that to anybody who will listen.

Later on, he emailed me and told me, “Thank you for sacrificing your body for my son.” If my running can somehow make a difference for his son, for my son, or for children who haven’t even been born yet but will have autism, then it’s all worth it. I don’t like to take credit, but it’s nice to get confirmation that I’m doing the right thing.

It was nice to meet Ryan. Hopefully we’ll cross paths again.

I Didn’t Run Hard This Weekend, But My Friends Did!
Two of my friends, Ryan Gillia and Rachel Boyd, ran the San Diego 100 this weekend. My friend Lori Liu ran a big chunk of that with Ryan, and my friend Billy Yang ran a big chunk of that with Rachel. It was Ryan’s second 100 and Rachel’s first, although Rachel won a 100K in February.

I followed along with what they were doing through Billy on Twitter and I know it’s just a bunch of names to most of you, but it’s my blog and I’m super proud of them. I feel like a proud papa, even though they’re not my kids and I think they’re CRAZY! They’re all great people I’ve met through running and I’m so excited for all of them. I’m sure they all had an amazing time and I’m really excited about this, so I figured I’d put a couple of paragraphs in here about them.

The Pros And Cons Of An Early Flight Home
I was going to have Cracker Barrel, one of my favorites, for lunch on Saturday after the race, but I ran out of time because I had a fairly early flight home. I ended up making a quick stop at In-N-Out instead. As much as I love In-N-Out, I’m going to call that a bummer, because I can get that any time I want. I live about a mile from the nearest one. I get to eat at Cracker Barrel about once a year.

However, I touched down in Orange County at 4:20 on Saturday and walked through my front door at 4:58 p.m. Yes, I was at home and “on weekend” before 5 p.m. on Saturday. I like that. It’s worth missing Cracker Barrel for.

I’ll Just Suck Up My Pride And Admit This
You know how at the top of this blog I said you’re never going to guess who I caught wearing a snuggie on Saturday? Well, it was me. They gave them out at an Angels game I went to in April, and it was a touch chilly in my house on Saturday night, so I grabbed it and put it on. At the time, we were watching the movie It’s Complicated.

So yes, I’ll admit it. On Saturday night, I was wearing a snuggie and watching a chick flick. Burn my Man Card.

This Made Me Happy
On Saturday night, for a little while, all three of the kids were having what we call a “sleepover” in the playroom. Jack willingly climbed into the sleeping bag for the first time. It was so awesome. Me and Tiff were whispering about how cool it would be if all three of them had fun together the way three typical siblings normally do.

Jack was more interested in his Leapster than in the movie, but it was still pretty exciting for us. It only lasted for about 30 minutes, though. He got up out of the sleeping bag and eventually wanted to go to sleep in his bed. And later, Ava got in trouble for irritating Benjamin by faking snore noises while she was awake. After one-too-many warnings, she had to go sleep in her room.

But it was fun while it lasted!

Kids Say The Darndest Things
Last night at dinner, my soon-to-be-9-year-old Benjamin ordered a Red Robin Kids Burger. The only problem with that is we were at Chili’s.

That’s All For Today
That’s more than enough reading information for today. I’ll see you back here tomorrow with 10 random things for Tuesday!