Good, Bad, Ugly

I suspect some of you are going to tell me to quit my fussing, but here comes a whiny weekend recap. Good stuff and bad stuff. If you’ve been following along for any chunk of time, you know I go through mood swings. Well, Grumpy Sam is in the house. Sorry.

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 and I’m trying to run 61 full marathons this year to raise money and awareness for a charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism.

I ran marathon No. 47 of the year yesterday, turning in a lousy performance at the Lewis & Clark Marathon in St. Charles, Mo. yesterday. Read all about it here. It was a tough run — I was probably in the worst condition, physically and mentally, that I’ve been in all year.

Anyways, the reason I write this blog is so that y’all can live vicariously through me as I go on this mission. Sometimes I’m having fun, sometimes I’m not. But you can be sure I’ll let you know when I’m struggling … like today.

Here’s the first item for today’s blog … I wrote this on my flight to St. Louis on Friday.

The Check Is No Longer In The Mail!
As a lot of you remember, we pushed and pushed in July in the Chase Community Giving Contest on Facebook and won $20,000. Well, the reality of that win came last Thursday when a senior vice president from JP Morgan Chase showed up with a check for the Operation Jack Autism Foundation! I guess people and groups really do win these contests!

As I’ve mentioned before, the net result of this is that Train 4 Autism is going to be the recipient of an extra $20,000 at the end of the year! And equally important, in my mind, is that this is roughly the cost of Operation Jack. So this, combined with a few things I’ve done outside of the donations that have come, means that all the money y’all have donated over the course of the year is going to Train 4 Autism.

I’ve made it no secret to that my Foundation is covering the expenses of Operation Jack. I can’t afford to do this, but I have firmly believed that it would be worth it and generate money and exposure that otherwise wouldn’t be there. Bringing in considerably more than the expenses has been a big concern of mine for more than a year. But this is America, land of opportunity. I took a chance and now I know with absolute certainty it paid off. And I still have the fourth quarter ahead of me, plus huge exposure coming in the December issue of Runner’s World.

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OK, now here is where I take a turn for the worse. Like, a complete 180. I wrote this on the plane back from St. Louis last night.

Saturday’s Fundraiser With St. Louis Cardinals Adam Wainwright and Skip Schumaker
We had a fundraiser on Saturday night at a sports bar with St. Louis Cardinals players Adam Wainwright and Skip Schumaker. Wainwright is a fan favorite and he’s been the best pitcher in the National League over the past two years, without question. He finished second in the Cy Young voting last year and will probably do the same this year. He led the league in wins last year and won 20 games this year. They’re rabid about their baseball in St. Louis, like you wouldn’t believe.

Schumaker, the team’s second baseman, struggled a little at the plate this year, but he hit better than .300 in 2007, 2008 and 2009, his first three full years, and fans love him. He’s a guy with a great work ethic who’s a team player and leaves it all on the field. When I talked to him about this earlier this summer, he told me that when him and Adam do autograph sessions like this, the lines go farther than the eye can see. We were pretty excited that this would raise a lot of money for Operation Jack. I did what I could to push it, I had people in St. Louis working to push it, the sports bar handed out flyers for weeks, they had posters and signs up inside advertising it and a big morning radio show in St. Louis was talking about it.

I talked to the manager of the bar about two weeks before the event and he told me he expected 300-400 people there. I recruited helpers so we could manage the line. Vendors donated items for a silent auction. I get little bits here and there from donations and various fundraising ideas, but I expected this to be one of the biggest fundraisers of the year. This had the potential to do very, very well.

So obviously, at this point, you get the hang of what this could have been. Well, I think we might have about 10 people pay for autographs. The bar was a ghost town. I’m not going to Monday morning quarterback the “why not” of this, but this was incredibly deflating. Adam and Skip were sitting at a table waiting to sign autographs and there was nothing to do. We probably waited 10 or 15 minutes for the first customer. I was beside myself. I didn’t even know what to think.

I joked with them that when they were done with their careers, they’d always remember this as the worst autograph session they ever did. They joked that it was the best, because it was easy and laid back. I felt bad for wasting their time, but they felt equally as bad for me because we were barely raising money. This was an absolute golden opportunity for Operation Jack and Train 4 Autism, and it ended up being just a little bit of sterling silver. We talked baseball and running for a little while to pass the time because there was nothing to do. It was just a painful experience. Skip told me that next year we’d give it a shot again, but he’d make sure it gets promoted better. I’ll keep that in the back of my mind, but I need to find some heart again. This was just a killer.

Now that you know what happened with the event, I’ll explain why this was such a mental smackdown for me. As you know, I’m all-in with this endeavor I’m on, and I never stop thinking of ways to raise money and attract people. That’s why I’m running 61 marathons and thrashing my body and spending the year writing blogs on airplanes. I’m perpetually exhausted, I hurt physically every day, but it’s been worth it, because I want to make a difference. I have this utopian dream of making the world a better place. Everybody has their skills and talents, and mine happens to be running marathons at a decent clip and recovering quickly. So, this is my attempt to use that ability to make the world a better place.

I have no clue what I’m doing. It’s trial and error, hit and miss. I fail a lot more than I succeed. I love, love, love succeeding. It was awesome taking that Chase check to the bank on Thursday. But I don’t think I’d be a good salesman, because I’m not good at handling rejection. I get a lot of rejection with Operation Jack. But I think this one, along with where we are in the year, might have been the one that finally did me in.

I couldn’t even fake a smile Saturday night or yesterday. It’s not just the money. I mean, we still brought in money that we didn’t have, even though it was probably about 5-7 percent of what we could have made. And yes I’m grateful that we even had this opportunity. My disappointment comes from the failure. I’m running out of gas, and that was like getting four flat tires. Right now, it’s just kind of like, “why?” I mean, I’ll finish up these 14 marathons and run every single one of them as hard as I can. But I don’t have much confidence in my ability to make any more of a difference the rest of the way. I’m not growing my base, I failed miserably with this event on Saturday, and really, I just think I’ve hit a wall in what I can do. It’s pretty much white flag time.

I feel like I’ve tried hard and put forth a hard, honest effort, and I’ve been doing it for a long time. But I think the heart switch got flicked to off. Yesterday, I had a couple of people, including my wife who I’ve been away from so much this year, reminding me that I can’t grow weary. That verse is right there at the bottom of this blog. Tiff told me God is testing me. I’m content with failing for the next 88 days.

I hear a lot of people tell me things about me inspiring them, and that scares me in a way, because I really don’t feel like I do anything out of the ordinary other than run a lot of marathons. And that ability is something that was given to me by God. He’s the one who’s inspiring. But my point is that as I write this, if you’re in the club that looks to me for any kind of inspiration, I hope I’m not letting you down. But at this point, you know I’m honest with you. I’m cooked.

Anyways, while I’m being honest, I really enjoyed going to the Cardinals game yesterday. Skip got some good karma for showing up Saturday night, going 2-for-5 with a run scored and a nice play in the field. The Rockies had one out and a runner on third when somebody lifted a lazy fly ball down the right field line and he raced over from second base to make a nice catch with his back to the infield. The runner on third tagged and tried to score, but he nailed him at the plate with a strong throw. The play wasn’t even close — the runner eased up about 20 feet from the plate and let the catcher tag him.

OK, that’s all I have for today. I’ll be back here with some updates on Jack. Have a great Monday, everybody.