Weekend Preview: It's All About The Pancakes

I got back from Fargo last Saturday, blinked twice, and all of a sudden it’s Thursday. These weeks fly by and it’s already time for another weekend preview. I’m not going to spend a lot of time analyzing how fast I’m going to run, though. It’s all about how much I’m going to eat.

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. Last year, after lots of brainstorming, I talked with my wife and we decided I’d attempt to run 60 marathons 2010 to try to raise money and awareness for a charity called Train 4 Autism.

So far, so good. I’ve run 26 full marathons since New Year’s Day. Only 34 to go. Maybe. I’ll get to that in a minute.

Jack Update
I haven’t talked a lot about Jack lately. It’s so weird for me to talk about what he’s going through, because due to his struggles, I feel like that’s something I just want to keep private. But if I wanted privacy, I shouldn’t have signed up for this. Plus, I know you guys are excited to hear about his progress and there’s nothing wrong with sharing.

We just got word late last week that he’s showing a lot of improvements with his behaviors. I mean, we knew this, but quantifiable data backs this up. So that’s good, right? Well, it’s a double-edged sword. There’s a very good chance that we’re going to see a reduction in services as a result of this. Our state is in a budget crisis and they look for ways to cut costs any time they can.

His behaviors are actually pretty mild — it’s his speech that’s the biggest problem. Once that comes through, we’re going to notice huge improvements. The behavioral therapy is really helping to bring out speech, so while it’s possibly justifiable to reduce services in that area, the reality is it’s probably going to impact his speech development.

Our therapists are going to help us with this fight, but it’s very possibly going to be a fight. So we’ll see what happens. Ahh, the joys of being a special-needs parent. In California.

Weekly Contest
Every week, I have a contest where you try to guess my time. If you think I’m going to run a 3:10, you make a donation of $3.10 as your entry. The person who comes the closest without underbidding wins their choice of an Operation Jack t-shirt, tech shirt or sweatshirt.

Last week’s winner was Melissa Gillespie, an Operation Jack supporter from Washington State. This week, we’re going to have a variation on the contest and it’s going to involve a pancake-eating contest. I’ll explain that a little further down in this blog.

A Contest I Can Enter!
If there was ever a contest that was made for me, it’s THIS ONE! I am SO entering this. I need to figure out a way to make this help Operation Jack. I’ll think of an idea, but I need a little time. I just found out about this yesterday.

I’m In Numbers Heaven!
When I hit 5.2 miles on Sunday, I’ll be at 26.2 marathons for the year! Yeah! I’m such a geek — this is the kind of stuff I live for. Pretty sad, huh?

Thank You, Wendy!
One of my wife’s best friends, Wendy Goetschel, surprised the heck out of me with a really nice wall post she made on Facebook, so I wanted to use my space to publicly thank her! This is what she wrote:
Friends – I AM ASKING FOR YOUR HELP! My close friend has a son, who is severly autistic. What I see Jack and the rest of the family go through breaks my heart. To raise money and awareness for Autism, her husband is running a marathan EVERY WEEK for a year (that’s 60 marathons), across the united states, the name of their non-profit is “Operation Jack”. If each friend could just donate $5.00 – it would make a HUGE difference. This family and cause is so dear to me. WHO is IN? Here’s the link:
Her friends listened! Thank you for your help, Wendy!

Feel Free To Say Hi!
I’ve known for a while that it’s a pain in the butt to leave a comment here. I built this site last summer and at the time, I didn’t know a thing about blogs. I’ve learned as I’ve gone along, and one thing I’ve learned is that my setup is extremely user unfriendly. I required user registration when I built this to prevent spam — comments don’t post until an account is verified. I get tons of spam that doesn’t make it to the site, but if there’s one thing I know I’ve prevented, it was getting people to leave comments. Who wants to register just to post? I wouldn’t!

I was working on integrating WordPress, but I wanted to do that inside of the system I built, and that was going to take a lot more time and energy than I have nowadays. So, I put in a captcha (you can see it at the bottom if you don’t know what that is), which only requires you to enter in the squiggly words in the picture. I uploaded it Tuesday night, and I didn’t get a single piece of spam on Wednesday. I’m not at all surprised.

So anyways, it should be a little more user-friendly here now. If you’ve been here but never left a comment, say hi and let me know you were here! No registration required!

This Week’s Contest
As I mentioned, I have a weekly contest. This week, though, it’s going to be a pancake-eating contest and you guys need to pick a winner. It’s going to be Sunday after the race in Rochester. I’m going head-to-head with an Operation Jack supporter named Lonnie Butler. Like me, Lonnie has a son named Jack who struggles with autism. Also, like me, he’s running the marathon in Rochester on Sunday. I’m looking forward to meeting Lonnie, his wife, and his Jack on Saturday night, and then seeing him finish his FIRST MARATHON on Sunday!

But after the race, it’s gonna be on like Donkey Kong. Lonnie’s a recovering big boy like me. I maxed out at 261 pounds and I’m in the 203 neighborhood nowadays. He dropped from 300+ to about 210. Some of my proudest food moments including eating 100 fried shrimp at Sizzler when I was 14, eating 11 pancakes at IHOP after the Country Music Marathon in April, out-eating three large men at my last job when we went for 4x4s at In-N-Out and then ice cream, and a barbecue at my fraternity house back in the day when beer induced me into eating eight hamburgers (some with buns, some without).

Lonnie has a pretty impressive resume too, though. Lonnie once had a meal where he ate a two-pound porterhouse steak, a banked potato, sourdough bread and salad with pop. He typically ate four to six servings of the all-you-can-eat pasta at Olive Garden, can easily put away a large or extra large pizza and once drank six cans of Mountain Dew in less than three minutes.

I’ve got my work cut out for me, but I want to win. So, here’s the contest. Pick who you think is going to win. If you think it’s going to be Lonnie, click here or on the “Donate Now!” link at the top of any of the pages on this site and donate $3. If you think it’s going to be me, same deal, but I’m $4. I’ll randomly draw somebody who bets on the right person and the winner will receive their choice of Operation Jack apparel.

So, that’s the contest for this week. We’re going to tweet from the restaurant. I’m @operationjack and Lonnie is at @LonnieRuns. Now c’mon, enter the contest! It’s for a great cause!

60 or 61?
As of now, I’m planning on running 60 marathons this year. But I’m willing to make that 61 and run Memphis on December 4 if Lance Haney hits his fundraising goal. We’re going to work it this summer and try to get that thermometer moving. 60? 61?

Where Should I Go?
Speaking of Lance, last week he told me that the Atlanta Marathon scheduled for Thanksgiving Day has been cancelled. So now, I have a hole in my schedule. I’m looking at three possible races: Seattle on Saturday the 27th or Waveland, Miss. or Cocoa, Fla. on Sunday the 28th.

I guess this is a cheesy fundraising attempt, but what the heck … raising money for Train 4 Autism is the name of my game this year. If anybody wants to pick my schedule, first person to make a $100 donation can tell me where to go. Or something like that.

Race Preview
The course actually looks fairly quick for the way I run. I usually get a lot out of the early miles without wrecking my heart rate. It starts with a big downhill and then a gradual uphill from 1 to 3. After that, it’s a gradual downhill net with some rollers and what looks to be a screaming-fast, yet manageable, downhill from 7.5 until about 8.8 or so. From there, a very, very slight gradual uphill in the middle third of the race and then a gradual as I kick to the finish.

On paper, the course looks fast. The temps could be warm, but they might not be too bad. I’d call this a quick course for the way I run. If I was betting, I’d peg myself at 3:10 for this one, but it wouldn’t surprise me to be several minutes quicker. If I’m feeling good, I like my chances for a quick run in this one.

That’s All For Today
Please, please, please enter the contest! And leave me a comment to let me know you were here! I’ll get a race report up at some point on Sunday. Have a great Memorial Day Weekend, everybody!