What's Up With OJ Wednesday

OK, these weeks are flying by way too fast. Saturday races, like I have this week, make them fly by even quicker. My quads are still a little sore and I’m already carb-loading. Ahhh, the joys of a Saturday marathon. Good thing I don’t have one of those every single weekend in April. Oh wait, never mind. I do.

Just in case this is your first time here, I’m a marathoner and a father of three. My middle child, 6-year-old Jack, is severely autistic. I’m trying to run 60 marathons this year to raise money and awareness for a wonderful charity called Train 4 Autism. I write this blog Monday through Thursdays (plus race reports on the weekends) to give y’all an insight into what goes on in my mind. Scary, I know.

Yes! An Excuse For Me To Mention Kansas State University!
There was a nice article about Operation Jack in the Kansas State Collegian today. The Collegian is the student newspaper at KSU, my alma mater. I spent a couple of years on staff back in the 90s and about a month ago, I got a call from a student reporter working for Update Magazine, one of the publications in the journalism department that tracks alumni.

She had a few questions about what I’m up to, primarily with my family and career. We were chatting for a few minutes and at one point, she asked if I was up to anything interesting that might be newsworthy. Well, aside from trying to run 60 marathons this year to try to raise money and awareness for Train 4 Autism, I couldn’t think of much. Maybe I should have mentioned my ice cream streak? (59 days now, by the way.) Operation Jack was newsworthy enough for her, though, and today, the article made it to print.

I read it before my run this morning and really liked it. Online, you can see how they lay it out and they allocated about 1/3 of the front page to the story! EVERYBODY reads the Collegian at K-State, so I know it will be seen, which is good. It kind of makes me laugh to know that some of my old professors will probably read it and do a double-take. Sam? Running? For reals?

Train 4 Autism Marathon Series, Starts This Weekend!
Along with local race promoter Charlie Alewine, I’m putting on a series of three marathons this year as a part of Operation Jack. I’ve named them the Train 4 Autism Marathon Series and the first one is THIS WEEKEND! We’re going to have a half-marathon and a full marathon and there’s going to be prize money for the series!

If you’re local, I’d LOVE to see you out there! Jack is scheduled to be in a therapy session on Saturday morning, but we’re working to re-schedule that so he can be out there at the finish line. I’m totally excited about this and I really, really hope to meet some of you out there! E-mail me if you have any questions!

Congratulations to Katey Williamson!
Every week, I have a contest where you guess what time you think I’ll run and the winner gets their choice of an Operation Jack t-shirt, tech shirt or sweatshirt. You guess by making a super-easy donation in the amount of what you think my time will be. So, for instance, if you think I’m going to run a 3:15, you make a donation for $3.15.

Whoever comes the closest without bidding too low is the winner. Or, in the last two weeks while I’ve struggled miserably and nobody bids a high enough time, the winner is the person who bids the closest even though they didn’t bid high enough. Katey is this week’s winner and we’ll send her out some gear.

Thanks to everybody who played along!

Reminder About Our April 30 Silpada Party
We’re going to have a Silpada party on April 30 in Lake Forest, Calif. That’s two nights before the Orange County Marathon and 9 days before Mother’s Day. All the profits from this will go to benefit Operation Jack. Silpada is company that sells jewelry. I’m a guy, so I can’t really give a good description. It’s nice stuff, decent quality. It’s not like diamonds and fancy stones. It’s just nice, moderately priced things. Maybe the right word to use is that you would accessorize with Silpada?

I don’t know. Whatever the case, I’ll be posting the evite next week for everybody. RSVP so we know how much finger food to provide. When I say we, I’m talking about my wife and my mother-in-law. I’ll be home with the kids. I don’t do jewelry parties. I have a rep to uphold.

Coming Soon, WordPress
I’m working fast and furiously to integrate WordPress into here. I know it’s a total pain in the butt to have to register or log in to leave comments, and nothing puts a dagger in your efforts to interact with folks like an unfriendly blog. I had no clue what I was doing when I built this, so I just kind of cranked it out last July and I’ve run with it while making only a few minor modifications. But I know it’s going to be better with WordPress. I’m just working on finalizing some integrations in my, uh, spare time.

Please Help Spread The Word!
I know y’all are here because you support what I’m doing, so I don’t feel too shy to ask for a little bit of help. All I’m asking for right now is for a little bit of help spreading the word. Facebook, Twitter, the site … whatever you can use to pass the word along, I’d greatly appreciate it!

Anything You Want Me To Talk About?
I have plenty of blog topics in mind, and with my formulaic approach I’m taking nowadays, it’s fairly easy for me to come up with material. BUT, if there’s anything you want me to talk about, let me know. If you have any questions, fire them off and I’ll answer them in a future blog. You can post them in a comment or use the Contact Us Form.

That’s Pretty Much All For Today
I’m going to cut myself off for now. I need to shift gears from blog writing to code writing. Have a great Wednesday everybody!