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.
Ally Phillips says
Sounds like an awesome weekend. I love that you were able to take Benjamin back to your old stomping grounds and show him around KSU. And yes, it’s never too early to start the college talk! And your new facebook profile picture is darn cute!
Kathy Yu says
Yay! Great men go Greek! 😛
Emil Cheng says
yeah, they’d better put Felsenfeld on that list! They’re trouble makers! 🙂
Good eating with you guys at Pei Wei.