I don’t get a lot of weekends where I don’t have to travel, so lucky for me, I had a nice, relaxing weekend. Well, aside from the two marathons and the pasta dinner that had me stressed to the max. I think flying to Miami last weekend was easier than this.
But it’s over and done with. I ran a couple of marathons this weekend, Diamond Valley Lake on Saturday (recap here) and Surf City yesterday (recap here). Saturday’s race had the worst weather of any of the 36 marathons I’ve run. Yesterday’s was fun, because I was the official 3:30 pacer.
The pasta dinner … wow, that was a lot more work than I thought it would be!
Pasta Dinner Recap
We had the Operation Jack pasta dinner on Saturday night and it was a lot of fun. Well, it was for me. There were probably 40-50 people there and everybody seemed to have a good time hanging out. There was way too much pasta, which is a whole lot better than not enough.
I stressed out big-time about this, because I didn’t want to let people down. But it seems like everybody had a good time and I got one of these events under my belt. Next time, it won’t be so bad.
It was great to look around the room, see the Operation Jack and Train 4 Autism banners on the wall and people talking and having a good time. The support there was overwhelming to me. It’s crazy to be on this end of it all. It’s just a surreal feeling, something I don’t feel I really deserve just because I’m running a lot of races. But it was cool to see it all come to life. Lucky me, to be able to experience this.
I had to get up and give an impromptu speech, and I hate speaking. This blogging thing is fine, because I can do it from the laptop on my couch. When I’m speaking at a pasta dinner, people could be looking at the pasta sauce on my chin for all I know. Tiff got up and was talking a little bit about Jack’s progress and we started to banter a little bit. It was just us being us, but it was fun and everybody was laughing. We were totally Abbott and Costello. I’m pretty sure that will be my lasting memory of the event.
My One Line Of Super Bowl Commentary
If I was an athlete, I think the one thing I’d want to do in any sport would be a pick-six to seal a Super Bowl win. How awesome was that last night? CRAZY!
Oh, and I won my bet with my grandma. She’s taking me and the family out to Souplantation. They have ice cream there.
Thank You Shelly Overton
So I pledged that I’m going to thank one person for something in every blog where I tackle a few different topics. So today, it’s Shelly Overton. Shelly is a fellow Train 4 Autism parent and she did a great job helping out with the pasta dinner on Saturday night. From securing the location to working on the planning to helping with the setup to cleaning up afterwards and helping out the whole time, she certainly went above and beyond to help get this done.
I’m running myself into the ground to make Operation Jack happen, but that doesn’t mean I can do it by myself. There’s no way we would have been able to pull off the dinner without her, so thank you Shelly!
That’s All For Today!
I have no idea if I’ll blog tomorrow or Wednesday, but I’m done for today. Have a great Monday everybody (there’s no such thing as a great Monday)!
Jeff Goodman says
I think we all enjoyed the dinner. You did a great job. The speech was priceless! Seriously though, it’s very moving to see how passionate you and Tiff are, about doing this for Jack and other children with autism.
Melissa G says
It sounds like things went great! [Stop stressing already. ๐ You won’t let anyone down.] Do you know this year you’ve almost run the equivalent of going from Seattle to Portland . . . and back? They have trains for that, so you’re kind of like Superman. haha
Erin Fortin says
(Boo go Colts, I’m still bummed about the interception…) I mean, yay Saints. And congrats on the double this weekend, Diamond Valley sounded epic. MIsery trips/runs are always memorable ๐