Looking Back While I'm Still Finishing The Race

As the year winds down, I’m sure I’m going to start writing retrospective blogs. This has been a big year for me, one I’ll never forget, and it will be impossible for me not to reflect on everything. I always say that the purpose of this blog is for you to be able to see this journey from my perspective. So here goes, retrospective blog No. 1!

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 and 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 48. Sunday, I ran Chicago and you can read why Neil Diamond made me cry in my recap.

Anyways, I dream of leaving a mark on the world. I want to make it a better place. I want to make a difference. I have to think that everybody feels that way, although that takes work and you have to pick and choose the right time and method. There’s no handbook for something like this, but I truly felt like I was being called to attempt to do something.

My son has autism for a reason. As part of what I go through emotionally, I’ve tried to figure out what that reason is. I’m pretty inward with my emotions, but as you can imagine, that’s something that has always been on my mind. Also, as I’ve mentioned quite a bit around here, I broke my neck when I was 16 and was fortunate to escape paralysis. I’m not athletic and I’ve never been able to run, so to have legs that work so well now is a total blessing.

Those two things are always on my mind, and always will be. I have a lot of time to think when I run, and I was constantly thinking of ways to use my running to make something good happen in the autism world. I came up with this Operation Jack idea, but I never really had a plan, and that proved to be my biggest mistake.

I launched my site six months in advance. I started writing blogs and pushing on Twitter and Facebook. Several times, I wanted to quit before I even started because I felt like I couldn’t get through to people. I didn’t know what I expected from anybody, and I didn’t tell anybody what I expected from them, but for whatever reason, I felt like I wasn’t getting what I expected — whatever that imaginary concept was. Twice, I pulled my site down, only to put it back up at my wife’s urging.

The word eventually kind of got out there, and more and more people started finding out about my plans for this year. The schedule was up, with a system that would allow people to join teams and become team leaders. People joined teams, but I had no plan for them. I still don’t.

I had this idea, that I would run 61 marathons this year to raise money and awareness for Train 4 Autism. I never connected the dots to try to figure out how running 61 marathons would accomplish my goals. I jokingly told people that I had no clue what I was doing. My standard line was, “I’m learning every day, and that will be the case until December 31, 2010.” That’s all still true. I have no clue what I’m doing and I’m still learning every day.

I’ve had all sorts of people offer free help and I don’t know how to put them to work. I have shirts for people, but I can’t find the time to do something so simple as tell ask my wife (the designated t-shirt sender) to send them out. Shoot, I have a list of people who made pledges based on a race five weeks ago that I still need to contact.

I’ve tried to cram 28 hours into 24 hour days, and I’ve tried to do that without knowing what I want to do. I take each day as it comes, a blurry series of repeating weeks. Decompress and mentally check out from Operation Jack on Mondays, week is in full swing Tuesday and Wednesday (that includes my full-time job, being a dad, being a husband, exercising to take care of myself, occasionally sleeping, writing blogs, etc.) and by Thursday, it’s time to be making final arrangements for the upcoming weekend. If I’m not traveling on Friday, I’m packing. Every weekend is shot. And then all of a sudden it’s Monday again, time to decompress. What is this, the 42nd or so week of the year? 43rd?

We’re already closing in on halfway through October. I’m getting excited about finishing this, but I know I’m going to be sad when it’s all done. I’ll miss the routine in a way. I’ll go through the weekend of January 1 and 2 without running a race and even though it will be awesome to be home with the family, I’ll miss it.

I’ve thought about how I’m going to look back on this. All in all, Operation Jack will be a net gain. There are new people involved with Train 4 Autism and a lot of people all over the country now know to contact me any time they come across somebody who wants to combine running with fighting autism. Then there’s the money, of course.

But a big part of me will feel like I blew it. I feel like I had a really good opportunity that I just couldn’t take advantage of. If I had organized and planned better, I could have made so much more out of it. I left so much on the table and I know I’ll always shake my head about that. I had a window and didn’t know what to do with it. I never told anybody what to do and unfortunately, this isn’t something I’ll get a second crack at. There’s no way I’ll do this again. Well, I take that back. If some company wanted to donate $1 million to Train 4 Autism, I’d run 62 next year.

From an individual standpoint, I’ll know I set out to do something difficult and I got it done. I downplay the impressiveness of the 61 marathons, because since it’s within the limits of what I can do physically, it’s not a big deal. I have to work hard and fight through a lot of pain, though, and the effort I’ve put forth is what I’m the happiest about. I went all-out. I was never tough as a kid, but I feel like I was pretty tough this year.

I’ll probably hold grudges against some people who have said I shouldn’t have done this. I’m not naming names, but I have a good memory. I didn’t make this into everything I wanted to, but I at least tried. I put myself out there and gave it my all. This was a tough year on my family. We knew that going in, but that was a decision my wife and I made together. Things don’t happen unless people step up and I decided to step up and at least take a chance. This is America, land of opportunity. I tried, and had lots of failures, but at least I tried. I’m not a professional athlete, but I can imagine how much they hate armchair quarterbacks who like to second guess.

I’ve been struggling mentally since last weekend when I had a disaster of an event in St. Louis. After I posted a couple of grumpy blogs last week, Train 4 Autism Founder Ben Fesagaiga sent me a quote from Theodore Roosevelt that I really liked.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

That mentality hit me at mile 19 of Chicago on Sunday. I tried this year. I tried hard.

At this point, I have 11 weeks and 13 races left to go, only 10 trips and only eight trips without Tiff. I’m past a point where I can really push the fundraising or recruiting. The Runner’s World inclusion is coming, I have some other publicity coming, and I’ll let those things take care of themselves. The best I can really do at this point is to go out and give it my all 13 times. I’m still chasing that sub-3 and even though my legs are dead, I’m still going to sink myself into it for Tucson on December 12. That’s where my PR is from and Tiff will be there. It’s been a long journey towards that individual goal, and it’s been a long year. I want to bring it when she’s there.

The point of all this? I don’t know. This is what’s on my mind so I felt like throwing it out there. Have a great Tuesday, y’all. 76 more days — not that I’m counting!