Operation Jack

Fighting autism, one mile at a time.

Weekend Recap: Annoying Travel Notes

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Normally I go with a weekend recap on Mondays, but I’m going to go with annoying travel experiences from the weekend. I have a few of those from this trip. I don’t get people.

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. As part of my way of dealing with his struggles, I’m using my ability to recover well from marathons to try to make a difference in the autism community. I’m attempting to run 61 full marathons this year to raise money and awareness for a great charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism.

So far, I’m through 51 and a couple of ultramarathons. 10 to go! On Saturday, I was the official pacer for the 3:40 group (recap here) in the Mankato Marathon in Mankato, Minn.

Things I’m Fine Without Hearing
From the pilot, on the way to Minnesota Friday:
“Sorry about the turbulence. We were cruising along on a nice, smooth ride at 39,000 feet, but we were told to move down to 37,000 feet due to a likely traffic conflict up ahead.”

No apologies necessary. Turbulence is always better than a “traffic conflict” at 39,000 feet.

Not Happy With Dollar Car Rental Right Now
Early in the year, I used several different car rental companies. Hertz is overpriced. Alamo really puts the hard sell on insurance and upgrades. I finally settled in on Dollar and I’ve probably used them 20 or 25 times this year. I really haven’t had any problems with them. In St. Louis, there was an issue with my reservation, but I book through Southwest and I think it was either my fault or Southwest’s fault. Not sure, not worried. Everything ended up OK.

But they annoyed me last week in Kansas City. I rented a full-size car since I had Tiffany and Benjamin with me, but they didn’t have one when I got there. So, they gave me a standard size instead. Not the end of the world, but I had to talk the guy into reducing my rate to the standard fare. He was resistant at first, then eventually gave me a flat discount of $10 for the two days, which was probably about $5 short, but I could tell I wasn’t getting anywhere, and I’m not going to try to contact corporate to recover that.

This weekend in Minneapolis, I got to the counter and there were two clerks, each helping somebody. I was the first person in line. As soon as one of the people were done, the clerk just walked off. I don’t know if she went on break or what, and I know she’s entitled to do that. But it was pretty obvious that the customer still being helped was an idiot and was going to be a while. I think the first clue was that he was wearing a Merona collared shirt inside out with the collar up. The arguing over everything was a second clue. The stupid jokes about the incompetence about rental car companies followed by turning around to face me to try to get laughter cemented my opinion.

He dragged the process on and on and on. Another man came up next to me and looked like he wanted to form a separate line and go ahead of me. When I finally got my chance to go up, the guy started pulling up my reservation. That man who was standing next to me decided to come up about 30 seconds after me. The clerk asked me if it was OK if he helped the other man, because he had a return and it was going to be quick. What am I going to do, say no?

Well, the guy starts complaining about the tires and the ride. The clerk apologizes and says he’ll let the manager know. So the guy complains again. And the clerk apologizes again. Rinse, spin, repeat for about five more minutes. I’m about to turn to the guy and tell him that he had some nerve cutting in like that when he knew he was going to go on. I didn’t feel like getting into a fight in the airport, though, so I kept my mouth shut.

A woman FINALLY comes back from break and takes the other station. She looks off to the line and shouts, “I can help who’s next!” I look at the clerk helping me to let him know, “Hey, give her my driver’s license!” But he’s too paralyzed with shock over the guy complaining about the tires. So I continue to wait as that woman helped another customer.

But finally it’s my turn. The guy tries to upsell me to a full-size and I’m having none of it. I had a standard car and the only one they had was in the shop. So, they had to upgrade me to the car the guy was trying to sell me. He tells me, “We’re going to upgrade you to a full-size as our way of apologizing for the time you had to wait.” Seriously? You just tried to sell me that car five minutes ago — don’t insult my intelligence and lie to me!

30 minutes after getting in line behind NOBODY, I finally had my keys and I go out to my car, which was in space E6, and something funny happened: There was no car in E6! So, I’m walking around clicking the keychain to try to unlock doors and finally I fun it in E2. Awesome.

But wait, there’s more!

I got the car at 4:10 p.m. on Friday. From the counter, you have to walk about five minutes to get to the car. I spent about three minutes actually looking for the car. I got in the car about about 4:18, turned on my GPS and got rolling. I drove out of the rental car garage at about 4:20. When I returned the car, I probably pulled into the garage at about 4:18 on Saturday. I parked, got my stuff and walked to the counter to return the car. It was 4:25. In the other terminal at MSP, if my memory serves correct, they start the clock when you exit the garage. I’ve been through that garage twice this year.

I would have been under the 24-hour window. But because this terminal makes you check in and out at the counter, I didn’t make it. Also, most car rental companies have a 29-minute grace period on that 24-hour period. Apparently, Dollar doesn’t . They charged me $5 for that extra hour. That $5 kicked in an extra $6 in taxes. So even though I really only had the car for 24 hours, because Terminal 2 at MSP is outdated I got to pay an extra $11.

I’ll survive, but I’m definitely not thrilled. Dollar, you failed this weekend.

Inconsiderate People Everywhere
I don’t get people. Why does everybody think rules don’t apply to them? Three rulebreakers annoyed the heck out of me while I was traveling, aside from the guy who couldn’t wait his turn at Dollar

1. LINE CUTTER
On Southwest Airlines, you board in the order than you checked in, more or less, and there’s no assigned seating. You pick a seat when you get on. The numbering goes A1-A60, then B1-B60, then C1-C60 or however many there are in the C group. So, A1 boards first, A60 boards right before B1, etc. You line up and people are supposed to act civilized. They have signs at the gate for every five positions. So A31-35 lines up behind a sign, A36-A40 lines up behind the next sign, etc.

I had A34 for my first flight. A woman stood up in front of me and did the “I’m gonna play on my phone and not look up trick and hide my boarding pass” until we got up to the agent. She pulled out her pass and it was A38. Not the biggest deal in the world, but it just annoyed me. I can tell who’s traveling for the first time and who knows what they’re doing. She knew what she was doing, she knew she was cheating, and that annoyed me. I got my seat, but still — it’s the principle.

2. SAFETY GUIDELINES DON’T APPLY TO THIS GUY
When you’re below 10,000 feet and heading in to land, you have to have all your electronic devices turned off. They say that devices can interfere with the plane’s communications equipment. I don’t know how serious of a threat it really is, but if that’s what they tell us, that’s what I’m going to do. It’s not worth it to chance it over the last 10 minutes of a flight.

Well, when we were landing in Los Angeles, some 20-something guy across the aisle from me had his iPhone on and he was hiding it and sneaking peaks at his email. We were about two minutes from landing. He’d look around, make sure nobody was looking, then sneak more looks. I don’t know what this guy thought was so important that he’d risk interfering with the plane’s communications equipment while we were landing, but that really annoyed me. I didn’t say anything. I’m not the type to run my mouth. Maybe I should?

3. THIS GUY KNEW BETTER THAN THE FLIGHT ATTENDANTS
On the same flight with the guy with the iPhone, we had to wait about 10 minutes to get to our gate because there was a plane still there. While we’re sitting on the tarmac, a guy gets up to get some bags out of the overhead compartment. The flight attendant comes on and announces over the PA that we’re still a taxiing plane and he needs to remain seated.

The guy apparently doesn’t care and he reaches for one of his bags and hands it to one of his travel companions. The flight attendant repeats the announcement and he casually grabs a second bag and then sits down without closing the compartment. So the flight attendant comes on again and tells him to shut the overhead compartment and he gets up and does that.

I don’t know why this guy thought he was above the rules, but again, I was annoyed.

Am I right to get annoyed by these people? Am I too easily annoyed?

OK, That’s All For Today
Have a great Monday, y’all! I’ll have something for ya tomorrow!

Race Report: Mankato Marathon

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Serving as an official pace leader for a marathon is everything that Operation Jack stands for, all rolled into a marathon performance. It’s a tough, focused effort. It’s running to help others. It’s motivating people to push as hard as they can. It’s not worrying about my race time, because that’s not what matters. It’s staying focused on the finish line and getting there no matter what anybody else does. I led the 3:40 group at the Mankato (Minn.) Marathon Saturday, my fourth official pacing gig this year. For the fourth time, I had a blast.

I lined up the responsibility about three weeks ago and was pretty excited about it. It’s always fun to help people along, plus I knew it would be somewhat of a break for my legs. I know, for most people, running a 3:40 marathon doesn’t seem like a day off. But for me, it would be nice to not have to go full throttle.

The forecast was for rain, but that doesn’t faze me. I lined up in the start area and took a look around to see what kind of a group I had. I couldn’t really tell, because everything was so crowded, but I made small talk with those around me before we got going.

We started rolling and I locked into a pretty consistent groove within a mile or so. I wasn’t flawless, but I knew I was pretty good. I always want to be perfect, but as a human being, all I can do is try my best. Every time we passed a mile marker, I announced to my group how we were doing overall for the race. We were almost always within six or seven seconds of perfect — sometimes a touch fast, sometimes a touch slow, sometimes right on. But always very, very close. I knew the miles were good, my pace wasn’t varying and we were on target. I was pretty happy with that.

For most of the first half of the race, I had about 20 people fairly close to me. Different people would pop up and talk to me and then maybe move forward or fall back. I never missed an opportunity to talk about Operation Jack!

There were three moderate climbs and some gradual declines early, but I felt like I handled them well. We went through the half in 1:49:58. Half of 3:40 is 1:50, so that was pretty close to perfect. As the second half moved along, there was a long incline at around mile 15 or so that dropped some folks off the pace. I took that slow, but it was a little humid and I’m sure it was tough for runners pushing to run a 3:40. The sun started to come out at about mile 17 and it became tough to run.

We were on track through mile 21, with maybe 10 seconds in the bank for the race, but at that point I think the mile markers were off a little bit. When we hit 22, we were 14 seconds in the hole and I know we didn’t run an 8:47 mile. I absolutely did not want to finish slow, because I’m a moving target and if runners chose to kick at the end, I needed to be in the right place. If they finished ahead of me, they needed to be sub-3:40, period.

I ran the next mile a little quick, maybe at around 8:15 (pace needed to average 8:23), and we were about 12 seconds off. I knew I needed to run at about an 8:00 pace to get my target at the right pace. That was difficult to do, though. I know I’m a faster runner than that, but when you’re locked into a groove for 23 miles, it’s tough to step it up. For starters, I was fatigued. I am human, you know? Plus, with 23 miles of 8:23 muscle memory, it’s a tough push. And of course, my legs are dead from the 50 prior marathons I’ve run this year!

But I pushed to make sure I was in the right spot as a target. I closed to within maybe six or so seconds at mile 25 and kept moving. At mile 26, I was 19 seconds fast, but at this point, I’m not convinced the mile markers were in the right spot for those final four. I eased up to about an 8:30 pace for the final .2 miles, slightly off the 8:23 I needed. I ended up crossing the finish line in 3:39:53.

It was a tough run to manage. I stayed as consistent as I could and when I found out I was in a hole early, I tried to gradually move my target to get it in the right spot. Working with the mile markers, the course and the conditions, I feel confident that I did a good job. I was fast by less than 1/4 second per mile overall. Can’t really complain about that.

Overall, I thought the race was really nice. It was a first-time event, and for those, you never expect much. But I thought it was very well organized from start to finish. I was definitely impressed. It’s not a destination race, but it’s certainly a very nice, local marathon. I’ve run MUCH worse this year!

So, there you have it. Marathon No. 51 of Operation Jack is in the books. Only 10 more to go!


I dunno … it doesn’t really look like I ran a marathon. But I did, I swear!

Finally, A Philly-Tulsa Decision!

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For those of you who come around here regularly, you know I’m in a pickle for the weekend of November 21. I planned on running Philadelphia, and there are people there I’d like to see, but the race sold out and they wouldn’t let me me in. A lot of you contacted the organizers on my behalf and never heard back. I lined up a plan B with Tulsa and set this week as a deadline to finalize that week. And I did.

It’s going to be Philadelphia!

I never heard back from the race, but I came across a charity called the Hearts & Smiles Foundation, which provides assistance to siblings of special-needs children in low-income families in the Philadelphia area. They provided me with an entry into the marathon. I’m going to do my best to raise some money for them.

Real quick, just in case you’ve never been here, I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, 7-year-old Jack, is severely autistic. I wanted to use my ability to recover well from marathons to make a difference for kids like Jack. So, I’m attempting to run 61 marathons this year to raise money and awareness for a charity called Train 4 Autism. So far, I’m through 50 of the 61. I’m almost there!

Anyways, back to Hearts & Smiles. I think about what Jack goes through a lot, and it’s pretty tough. But Hearts & Smiles makes me pause for a minute to think about my other two children, Benjamin and Ava. We’re on a very tight budget, but we’re not a low-income family. Still, they have their difficulties because of Jack. Their routines frequently have to revolve around Jack and they sometimes don’t get the attention they need.

Families with special-needs children have all sorts of challenges and the typical siblings will face struggles as a result of those circumstances. They’ll grow up to be very loving, protective people, but they’ll have pretty tough elements in their childhood. Being in a low-income family will make things even tougher.

So, I’m excited to help Hearts & Smiles as part of running the Philadelphia Marathon. You can reach my fundraising page by going to operationjack.org/philadelphia. Let’s nickel-and-dime our way to the top of my thermometer.

I used to have a weekly contest where you’d pick my time. How about contributing a dime for every full marathon I’ve run this year? 10 cents is a lot easier than 26.2 miles. I’ve done that 50 times. That’s only $5! That’s the donation I started with personally. Even on my tight budget, $5 doesn’t mean anything. But it’s going to help a great cause.

So, please think about it! Thank you for your support!

Race Preview: Mankato Marathon
Marathon No. 51 of the year is the Mankato Marathon in Mankato, Minnesota. I’m excited about this for a few reasons. First, I get to pace the 3:40 group. It’s a lot of fun pacing, because I get to help people reach their goals. I’ve paced four times before, averaging less than 1/2 second a mile fast. I take it seriously and I’m aiming for a 3:39:59. The last time I paced 3:40, I went 3:39:58 at Utah Valley in June.

The other reason I’m excited is the race is on Saturday and I’ll be home Saturday night! Daddy gets a day off!

Of course, it’s also nice to give my legs a break this weekend. For me, that means running a marathon at a pace of about 8:20 per mile. I’ll have a report posted Saturday night.

That’s All For Today
Have a great Thursday and Friday, everybody. I’ll have a race report up on Saturday!

Weekend Recap: Hangin' With The Fam

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Wow, what a weekend. Marathons 49 and 50 of 2011 in the book and I had a great time with Tiffany and Benjamin in Kansas and Colorado. We took a ton of pictures, so I’ll try to keep the writing to a minimum and the photos to a maximum.

Real quick, just in case this is your first time here, I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, 7-year-old Jack, is severely autistic, but improving well. I’m attempting to run 61 marathons in 2011 to raise money and awareness for a charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism. So far, I’m through 50 marathons, which is good — I’d hate to have to run 61 between now and December 31!

On Saturday, I ran the Kansas City Marathon (recap here).
Yesterday, I ran the Denver Rock ‘N Roll Marathon (recap here).

For the first time this year, my wife and oldest son Benjamin tagged along and we had a blast! The weekend started when I woke up at 3 a.m. Thursday morning to head to the airport after getting four hours of sleep. Here’s how it went from there …

First things first — FOOTBALL!
I graduated from Kansas State University. Thursday night, my alma mater played in-state rival Kansas and we won 59-7! And yes, we went to the game and had a great time! Too bad it was in Lawrence on the KU campus.


Me, Tiff and Benjamin after the race.

First of many friends I caught up with
A good friend and pledge brother of mine from college, Mike Ryan, was in town for a wedding, so we caught up for breakfast. Shoot, he was a groomsman in my wedding, too. I’m not sure he had seen Tiffany since our wedding and I hadn’t seen him since his wedding in 2006. He had never seen any of our kids. So, we had a great time, plus we ate at Cracker Barrel. Does it get any better than that?


Me and Mike chilling in the rocking chairs outside Cracker Barrel.

Visiting My Old Fraternity House
I’m a Phi Delt, for those of you who went through the Greek system. Before my last semester, we sold our house to Delta Chi because it was falling apart and they really wanted it. They sold it a year ago to a sorority. I went by to go on a tour, if possible, but it’s abandoned now. And it’s condemned. It’s getting torn down. It was so sad! But it was cool to see it one last time. Sniff, sniff.


Me and Ben at 508 Sunset, 66502. Rest in peace, Phi Lodge.

Visiting My New Fraternity House
So at least my chapter has a new house. It was pretty nice and I took a tour courtesy of Beau Dewbre, an active with the Kansas Gamma chapter. Benjamin got a big kick out of the house and he wants to go live there someday. I like that!


Beau and me outside the new Phi Delt house.

The 1995-96 composite is still on the wall. Little did I know I’d get even uglier.

Ben: Go To College!
Benjamin is only 9, and he’s only in the fourth grade, but it’s never too early to encourage college, right? I took him for a little bit of a drive through the campus at KSU. Then we went into the newsroom I spent a million hours in. Then we went to the Student Union, where they have a bowling alley in the basement. He’s sold. He can’t wait to go to college! That’s what I like to hear!


Me, Ben and Tiff in the Collegian newsroom.

Ben in the Student Union. He’ll be back later, as a student. Man, that would be rad.

Strolling Down Memory Lane
Well actually, a street called LeGore. Tiff lived in Manhattan for a semester. I lived in the Phi Delt house, she lived at 1433 LeGore. We were kids back then. So we had to go back and take a picture.


Man I look fat in this picture. And this was before lunch.

Next Good Friend I caught up with
I met up with a buddy of mine, Scott Fritchen, who was one of my best friends in college. We’ve kept in touch over the years, so we met up with him for lunch. He works for a K-State sports publication called Powercat Illustrated and they have a TV studio in their office. Ben got a big kick out of that. And of course, I didn’t take a picture. But I did take a picture with Scott.


Man I look fat in this picture, too. In all fairness, though, this was after a huge lunch at Hibachi Hut.

OK, Moving Along, …
We went back to Kansas City, picked up my stuff and stayed at a friend’s house in the Kansas City area. On the Kansas side, of course! The Kansas City area covers Kansas and Missouri and I’m definitely partial to the Kansas side.

I got about six hours of sleep and then I got up and ran the Kansas City Marathon on Saturday morning (recap here). After the race, we had to scoot pretty quickly to make it to the airport. We did a quick stop-off at 12425 W. 120th Street #1023 in Overland Park. Yeah, that was the first apartment we lived in after we got married. Ahhh, memory lane again!


This is my new Facebook profile picture.

We drove through Taco Bell, rushed to the airport and got in to Denver. After getting our next rental car, we headed straight from the airport to Pei Wei in Boulder to meet up with some runner friends. We had a nice time there.


The obligatory picture for the blog.

We got to where we were going by 9 p.m., staying with friends of ours in the Denver area. I got to bed a little before 11 and had to wake up at 4:30 a.m. on …

Sunday!
I woke up naturally and realized I forgot to check in for our Southwest flight Sunday night! Tiff wondered why I was typing furiously on the keyboard at 4:30 and it was because I didn’t want us to get stuck in the middle seats in separate rows on the way home. We got A57, A58 and A59, so we were fine.

Anyhow, I ran the Rock ‘N Roll Marathon on Saturday morning (recap here).

After the race, I went back to my friends’ house, got cleaned up and we went out to lunch. It’s funny — last weekend when I was in Chicago, I didn’t get any pizza. I got McDonald’s at the airport. But in Denver, we went to a place called Old Chicago. Go figure. I had a stromboli, whatever that is. And fries.

Tiff and Benjamin went shopping or something like that and I chilled on the couch with my friend, watching the Jets-Broncos game. We said farewell, then took off and headed for dinner. We were going to hit Sonic, but we saw Cracker Barrel again!

I decided to go with dinner for dinner instead of breakfast for dinner. There was a chicken BLT sandwich that looked really good, so I ordered that. A funny thing happened, though. They just brought out a BLT. I NEEDED that chicken, so they told me to snack on the BLT while they brought out my sandwich. So I did. They must have known I had run two marathons over the weekend and I was starving!

So I actually got two dinners out of the deal, plus I finished some of Benjamin’s french toast and I split some carrot cake with Tiffany. That took care of me. I had five cups of coffee, hoping that would keep me awake on the flight, but I couldn’t hack it.

Benjamin had the line of the night when we went through security. Tiff put a jar of peanut butter in his backpack, and apparently that’s a no-no. So they asked him if that was his bag, and he said, “It’s OK, I didn’t pack any guns or knives.” They took the peanut butter and he asked if he was in trouble. The TSA agent joked that they might put him on a list. So he said, “Well my name is Benjamin and my last name is spelled F-e-l-s-e-n-f-e-l-d.” Me and Tiff were cracking up!

Anyways, I got about 90 minutes of shut-eye on the flight and we finally landed a little after 11 p.m. After getting Tiff’s bag, getting the car and driving home, we finally walked through the door at 1 a.m. I think I got to sleep by about 1:15.

Too bad I was up five hours later attacking my Monday, huh?

I went to In-N-Out for lunch on Monday and while I was there, Tiff updated her Facebook status and it made me smile.

Had to take a two hr nap to recover from my trip to Kansas, Colorado and I DIDN’T run two marathons this weekend. Sam, I seriously am in even more “awe” over how you do this. Crazy.

I’ll admit it, this was an exhausting weekend. But so far, through nearly 36 years of walking this planet, I think this might have been my best weekend ever.

Just In Case You Have Similar Thoughts, …

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I got a comment on my blog today and I wanted to clear some things up. If one person says it, I’m sure 20 people think it.

On Oct 19, 2010, at 4:45 PM, C Stroud wrote:

Sorry guys, I agree that charity runners are not THE problem at Boston, respectfully submit they don’t belong or at a minimum have outlived their purpose.. Charity running has become an industry unto itself.

And Sam, I don’t know you so this is by no means directed at you, but many people use charity running as merely a means to fund, indulge, or otherwise justify their pursuits. I know a gal who just did an endurance event in all 50 states under the guise of charity. Certainly she raised funds but had her goal been to benefit the charity of her choice, the amount of time spent in the pursuit could have been put to far better or more beneficial use than the funds raised.

And please, do not tell me it is about “awareness”. People are aware of these diseases or causes. Not a single person is now aware of breast cancer because the NFL is using pink shoes and gloves this month. But Campbells has sure sold a lot of pink cans of soup.

———————– My reply: ———————–

FYI, since you seem to be jumping to a few conclusions about me, I want to clear a couple of things up …

1. I agree with you that charity runners are not THE problem at Boston, but as long as they continue to raise money for great causes, they have not outlived their purpose. Charity running has absolutely become an industry. Team In Training (which I have never been a part of) has raised more than $1 billion over the past 20+ years and knowing the percentages of their expenses, they’ve probably spent $220M of that funding races. So, a good $800M or so has gone to fighting leukemia and lymphoma through TNT. That’s HARDLY outliving its purpose.

2. Read this: http://operationjack.org/blog/?m=b&i=48 I don’t know if you’re a spiritual person, but I truly believe God led me down the path I’m on. This year has been incredibly difficult on me and my family and we knew that going in. But I have an idealist’s dream of making the world a better place and with my ability to recover quickly from marathons, I thought this might be a way — especially in the autism world. My son is severely autistic, and as part of my inward way of dealing with knowing that his childhood is ruined, I want to make what he’s going through “worth it” … I want to make things better for other kids if I can. So this was my first attempt at that.

3. Re awareness, I don’t need to make anybody aware of autism, and that’s not what I’m doing. I’m making people aware of Train 4 Autism, a small charity based out here in Southern California that helps people raise money for local autism-related charities that they choose. I think it’s a great vehicle that needs a spark and that’s what I’m trying to do. I have new chapters in Maine, Utah, Kansas, etc., as a result of this and money will be raised for autism-related charities in those areas as a result of what I’ve done. So yes, it is about awareness.

And for what it’s worth, I’ll be 36 on race day next year, so my qualifying time is 3:15:59. I’m in with a 3:03, I have six sub-3:10s and I think 14 or so BQs that count towards that race (so far). So I’ve earned my way in. I understand both sides of the fence and really, it’s pretty disheartening to see such hateful comments come towards me from someone who really didn’t even take the time to find out what I’m all about. You say your comments are not directed at me, but we both know that’s a cop-out.

Take care,
Sam