Weekend Recap: I Left Home To Go Home

Kansas is the anti-Vegas. It’s a great place to live, but you wouldn’t want to visit there. Well, of course, unless you’re me. I moved away 10 1/2 years ago, but my heart is still there. I was fortunate enough to be able to head there this weekend. Oh, and I ran a couple of marathons and went to Dallas, too.

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. I’m trying to do something to make a difference in his honor, so on top of working full-time and doing the best job I can as a parent and a husband, I’m trying to run 60 marathons in 2010 to raise awareness and money for a charity I’m a part of named Train 4 Autism.

I’m on target so far, having completed the first 18. If you want to read about what pain feels like, you can check out my race reports from Saturday’s Olathe (Kan.) Marathon and yesterday’s Big D Texas Marathon.

The Running Is The Easiest Part
The logistics are tricky, and I’m really reaching a point where it’s tough to be away from my wife and kids. When I’m gone, I call up several times a day to say hi and see how things are going, and it’s really getting tough. It’s fun to see new places and meet new people, but it’s a lot more fun to play handball with Benjamin at his school than to get a text from Tiff telling me she played handball with Benjamin at his school. I’m the one who teaches him how to play that game well. I want to be there.

I guess Tiff and I knew what we were getting into, and we still believe very strongly in what we’re trying to accomplish. I talk about a lot of the positives of Operation Jack and the fun experiences I have, but in case you’re wondering if this is difficult and if it kills me to be away from the family so much — yes and yes.

If I Must Travel, It Might As Well Be To Kansas
I went to Kansas State University and lived in Kansas City after I graduated. I really love that part of the country and feel like I’m a Kansan at heart living in California. That was my first stop of the weekend, since I ran Olathe (a Kansas City suburb on the Kansas side of state line) on Saturday. In my book, it just doesn’t get any better than Kansas. I felt more at home than I do in California. It was wonderful.

I got to catch up with a good friend/mentor, have lunch with some good friends from college, see the places I used to shop at with Tiff when we first got married and visit with some of my pledge brothers and see one of their farms. Throw in a marathon, playtime with a pit bull and lunch at a GREAT barbecue restaurant named Oklahoma Joe’s and I’d call it a pretty solid 22 hours.

I got to hang out with another old college friend in Dallas and spend some time catching up, which was also fun. I get homesick when I’m gone, but if I’m going to be gone, it’s nice to last spend quality time with quality people.

I Hate United Airlines
I had a lousy experience flying to Virginia three weeks ago on United. They made me check my carry-on even though there was space in the overheads just because I was in seating group No. 4. I really, really hate them, but I think the feeling is mutual, because they seem to hate all of their passengers. They don’t even give out peanuts!

I swore I wouldn’t fly them unless I really had to, but I really had to this weekend (American’s rates from Dallas were ridiculous). I had a repeat of my incident being in seating group No. 4 flying back from Dallas yesterday. I had to check my bag, and when I got on the plane, half of the overheads were empty. I asked the flight attendant when I got on the plane if I could hold on to my bag, be the last person on the plane and put it in one of the empty spots if there was one. She said no problem.

Of course, by that point, the guy who took my bag already put my bag on the ramp down. I asked him if I could walk the eight steps down to grab it and he told me no. I’m sure it would have been way too much for him to walk down those steps, too. So I got to wait at the baggage claim last night when I got in instead of heading straight to my car. That’s exactly what I wanted to do. I wasn’t tired or anything. I only flew three times this weekend, I only ran two marathons, plus I got a whopping 10 hours of sleep between Friday and Saturday night! I was only 19 hours into my Sunday when we landed.

My United Airlines Crew On Friday Was Not Smooth
So on my flight to Kansas City Friday, I went on (oops) United and switched planes in Denver. On our way in, we encountered some fairly rocky turbulence. Normally, they’ll tell us that we’re beginning our descent and we need to discontinue use of our portable electronic devices. Well, we were way above the 10,000-foot level they typically tell us to power down at, yet they abruptly told us to shut down right while we were going through that turbulence with no explanation. Not very comforting.

A little bit later, we were coming close to landing so the pilot told the flight crew to cross check and prepare for “an excellent” landing. In all the flights I’ve taken, I’ve NEVER heard that announcement as anything other than to “cross check and prepare for landing.” The “excellent” adjective seemed pretty odd, and even if you’re used to flying, you probably don’t want to hear anything out of the ordinary, especially during rough patches. This, too, was not very comforting.

But the part that was smooth as sandpaper came about five minutes before landing. There was no announcement necessary, but for whatever reason, the flight attendant came on and announced to us, “in the event of an emergency landing and evacuation, please leave your carry-on items behind.” ARE YOU KIDDING? They tell you that at the beginning of the flight when they go through the emergency card, but five minutes before landing? Again, I’ve NEVER heard that at the end of flight. And again, that was not very comforting.

We didn’t have an emergency landing or evacuation. I’m pretty happy about that, because I didn’t want to leave my carry-on bags behind.

Sometimes Small Gestures Mean A Lot
On the rental car shuttle in Dallas, the driver saw my Olathe Marathon shirt, so he asked he if I had run a full marathon, and I told him I had. He asked me if it was my first, and once he did that, the cat was out of the bag and Operation Jack came up in the conversation fairly quickly. He was impressed and asked my name so he could track my results, so I gave him an Operation Jack flyer.

He read it and later asked me about Jack and how he was doing and what our routine is like. I answered all of his questions and we chatted during the ride. When we got to the rental car area, he was unloading bags for passengers and collected a few dollars from some people. We were chatting and I was about to go, and he pulled out his wallet and gave me a $5 bill. “Normally, customers tip me, but I want to tip the customer this time. I think it’s great what you’re doing.” I graciously accepted it and was beaming on the inside. $5 isn’t going to make or break Operation Jack, but it sure did make my day.

Quick Housekeeping Items
Two quick things:
1. I’m making a gentle fundraising push in April to try to raise money in a painless way. I’m running seven marathons in seven states this month, so I figure that 7 is the lucky number (well, it’s been the painful number so far, but that’s a different story). So, I’m trying to raise $7 donations. Take a look at the April update I sent to the Facebook group if you haven’t already seen it.

2. We’re going to have a pasta dinner on May 1, the night before the Orange County Marathon, at Buca di Beppo in Irvine. I’d love to have as many of you there as possible. For more information, follow this link!

That’s All For Today!
Like that wasn’t enough. Have a great Monday, everybody. See you tomorrow!