If you’ve never been exhausted, and you want to get exhausted, I have a great solution for you. Just do what I did this weekend!
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. I decided I wanted to do something to try to make a difference in his honor, so I’m attempting to run 61 full marathons this year to raise money and and awareness for a great charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism.
So far, so good. I ran marathon No. 52 of the year yesterday (Marine Corps Marathon, recap here). It was a great one! And I’m in single-digits now — only nine to go!
Anyways, back to my weekend. I’m going to start it on Friday night, because, well, who doesn’t start their weekend on Friday night?
Friday Night
I was the last one out of the office at about 5:30, then I got home, had dinner with the kids and Jack and Ava went to bed fairly early. They were both pretty tired.
I ran out to get a sports drink I needed for my race on Sunday, but the GNC near my home didn’t carry it and I wasn’t going to drive an extra 15 minutes to get to the Vitamin Shoppe where I normally go.
I hung out for a little while with my oldest son, Benjamin, and my wife, Tiffany. We played Uno in a game that went on for a little while. Ben beat us both, but in the competition that really mattered, me and Tiff played it out for second and I beat her.
I packed for my trip, then stayed up and got comfortable with a bowl of ice cream watching Millionaire Matchmaker on DVR with Tiff. I’ll admit it, I like that show. What’s really great about that show is that we both like it and watch it together. She likes reality shows (I can’t stand them) and all I watch is sports and the news, so when we have a show we can watch together, that’s awesome.
I successfully fought off the fall-asleep-on-the-couch gremlins and I made it through the show. Friday night ended at 10:30.
Saturday
Saturday started at 3:40 a.m. I got up, got ready, had breakfast and left for the airport an hour later. LAX is a 54-mile drive. I wasn’t all that tired, though. I parked strategically at a lot I don’t always use. But it mattered — you’ll see why on Sunday.
I got on my flight to Washington D.C. on Virgin America. Sweet plane — it was nice and they have satellite TV. I dozed some, did some work on the computer with college football on in the background, dozed some more, ate some snacks and landed at Dulles.
I got my car and went straight to the expo. There was a lot of traffic and chaos there because of the Jon Stewart rally. Amazingly, I found free parking on the street right across from the expo! I met up with several people there, got my stuff, caught up with Operation Jack supporter Ally Phillips to make carpool plans for Sunday morning, then left.
I stayed with relatives in the D.C. area, and I had a dinner to go to. I wanted to be able to stop by and visit for at least an hour before I turned around and left. All the mapquesting I’d done said it would take about 20-30 minutes to get there. I got in the car at about 4:45 and needed to go 6.2 miles. I got there at 5:40. That’s a 55-minute 10K — I can run faster than that!
The traffic was exhausting and I could only stay for about 10 minutes and I left to go to an annual dinner put on by the Organization for Autism Research. That was 8.5 miles away and my GPS said it would take 30 minutes. 20 minutes for a dinner like that would be a reasonable amount to be fashionably late to. It took me 40 minutes to get to the area, but there were all sorts of parking problems and it took me another 20 minutes.
I finally got into the dinner an hour late, but I wasn’t the only one with parking problems. Everything was fine, and it was a really nice event. It ended at about 8:30 and I mingled until about 8:45 and got to my car about 10 minutes later. I had to go 8.5 miles back and I didn’t get there until 10 p.m. It was the perfect storm of marathoners, the rally and Halloween that made that city a zoo. It was the worst traffic I’d ever been in. I covered four of those miles in about 20 minutes. Those 4.5 that took a good 45 minutes drove me crazy.
There was some good people-watching in D.C. — the crazies were certainly out for Halloween. It was exhausting. I walked in the house and I was dead-tired. I stayed up visiting until 11:30, because it was my only chance and I don’t get a chance to see them often. Finally, I got upstairs, got everything ready for Sunday, did something real quick for work that needed to be done at midnight, texted my boss to let her know it was done and called it a day.
Saturday started at 3:40 a.m. in California, I lost three hours in the air and it ended a little after midnight in D.C. I had gotten about 17 hours of sleep the previous three nights and was looking at a max of five. I had no idea how I would function on Sunday.
Sunday
I set the alarm for 5:15 a.m., which is 2:15 a.m. body time. I somehow woke naturally at 5:14 and avoided the alarm, which is nice. I’m like a Pavlovian dog with the alarm clock on my phone. When I hear it, I know it’s time to wake up and run a marathon. I like running marathons, but they’re hard work and sometimes that sound puts dread into me. I was glad to avoid it.
I got ready, tiptoed out of the house, then went to pick up Ally and her husband, Justin. We had VIP parking at Fort Myer, which was nice. It took us a little while to figure out where to park, but we got there and walked down to the race. I didn’t realize it at the time, because it was dark, but we parked about 30 yards from graves at Arlington National Cemetery.
Here’s a picture I took when I got back to my car:
My heroes.
Back to before the race, we walked down, Ally got me a wristband for the VIP tent, I went to the O.A.R. tent for a few minutes and then it was time to go to the race. So I went and ran the race. Afterwards, it took me about 45 minutes to walk and get my stuff, get a little bit of food, take my picture, then leave to walk to my car. My car was about a 20-minute walk and when I got in, I headed straight for the airport.
With the traffic mess, I knew better than to try to cross back over into D.C. to go to my relatives’ house to shower, then head back to Dulles. If I missed my flight, I’d miss trick-or-treating. I got to my car at 12:30 and my flight at Dulles, which was 30 miles away, was at 2:44. That’s a big airport — you can’t walk in and get on a plane in 30 minutes.
My plan to clean up was to find a public restroom somewhere and do the best I could with a package of baby wipes I had. But I googled a gym and found one near the airport. I was going to call them and ask if I could show up and take a shower, but I figured it would be easier to show up and ask them nicely in person.
I got there, asked the woman nicely, told her I ran the marathon but needed to catch a flight to get home to go trick-or-treating with my kids. She asked me if I was a member, and I told her I wasn’t — I live in California! I told her I would appreciate it, but since I had a middle seat coming back, the two people sitting next to me would really appreciate it!
She gave me a green light, and it was pretty nice to take a shower instead of cleaning myself with baby wipes in a restroom stall! I talked to my wife on the phone before I got to the gym and told a baby-wipe cleansing would at least make for a good blog, but I wasn’t wanting that.
After putting gas in the rental car, I got to the airport, got through security and was one of the last people to board the plane. I made it by less than 10 minutes and didn’t have time to grab anything to eat.
When I was boarding, they told me they were out of space in the overheads for roller bags and would have to check it. I was so bummed, because it was going to the baggage claim, which would cut 20-30 minutes out of my trick-or-treating time with my kids. There’s nothing I could do, but I saw a spot when I went down the aisle, so I ran back off the plane before my bag got sent down and asked the gate attendant if I could put in the space I found.
She said yes! I’ll give credit where credit is due — this was United! Y’all know how much I hate United. Well FINALLY they came through for me!
So I was on the plane, on my way back to Los Angeles, excited that I made it through my tight timeline to catch my plane back. I was a zombie, too. I fell asleep for about 30 minutes then woke up and wrote my race report.
I have something like 3,000 songs on my iPod and when I fly, I put it on random shuffle. I have a really wide variety on there so it’s a good mix to pass the time. I kid you not, this was the second song I heard:
I dozed for about two hours after that and woke up and started cranking out this blog.
We landed at 5:20 and the race was on — I had to get out of the airport, get to my car, and drive 54 miles to get home so we could get to our church, which had a “Blocktober” safe trick-or-treating function.
I had a text that there was a problem with the website at work, so I got on the phone with Tiff and taught her how to move files around. Problem fixed. Yay for technology, I guess. I flew down the highway and got home in time to hit a few houses on the street with the kids before heading over to the Blocktober with the family, my parents and my in-laws. Everybody had a great time, especially the kids.
We got back, I took care of another work problem, tucked the kids into bed, unpacked, got some stuff done on the computer, and all of a sudden it was 10:30, more than 20 hours after I woke up. I successfully fought the fall-asleep-on-the-couch gremlins to watch a murder mystery on TV with Tiff, but she wasn’t strong enough to stay awake! Ha — I win!
And now it’s Monday morning, time for work. It’s like I never left.
mac smith says
Hey Sam, What do you do for a living M-F? Are they totally onboard with your endeavors?
laura sullivan says
supersam sometimes. you’re not going to have any idea what to do with your spare time next year 🙂 LESS THAN 10 LEFT!!!!
Ally Phillips says
That picture of Arlington is amazing. It was so moving to be walking to the race start and see Arlington off to the right. We didn’t get back to our hotel until 5PM–long day! And it wasn’t nearly as long as your day and weekend.
Random, but, I think at the end of this year, you should do a little recap of your favorite races/the best marathons, etc.
Great seeing you this weekend, as always! And the picture you texted me is AWESOME.
Tffany Felsenfeld says
Let me start by saying to Laura, oh trust me, I’ve got plenty of things for him to do next year! Sam, I seriously can’t believe that with all that hustle and bustle, it sounded like it ended up being a flawless execution! No hold ups for the most part that would end up ruining your trip or getting back from it! Also, the thought of running a marathon and not showering after, gives me the heebie-jeebies! I would just die!
I’m so amazed over how successful you’ve been with everything involving Operation Jack this year. There have been a few, “Oh craps!” and a few “Oops!” but you always seem to pull if off in the end. Hey, if you are able to pull this whole thing off, then cleaning out the entire garage next year will be a piece of cake!
Love you! 🙂
tom clemons says
Sam, My wife and I sat across from you at your table for the OAR dinner. Your story is very inspirational and gave me encouragement as I ran my first Marathon at age 50. I’m glad you could make it home in time for trick or treat. And hey, I feel your pain about the traffic in DC.
Pete Jewett says
Sam, my wife and I were also at the OAR dinner. Thanks for your efforts and motivation! MCM was my first marathon for OAR and I hope to do many more. Maybe not as many as you, but more none the less!