Tag Archives: Operation Jack

What I’ve Been Up To

Posted by Melissa on December 29, 2011 2 comments

Merry {belated} Christmas!

I’ve been pretty much “unplugged” for the past week and it was glorious! Sometimes you just need to take a little time for yourself.

Leslie and I met up at Brushy Creek on rainy and cold Christmas Eve morning. The weather may not have been ideal but the company was great and we chatted the whole time, making the 4 mile run pass by fairly quickly.

I spent the remainder of Saturday planted on the couch watching football with a mimosa in hand.

I’m heading into week 2 of the fantasy football championship down by 2 points. Not happy.

Saturday night I recreated Carrabbas’ Chicken Bryan dish for dinner, and then we watched Jim Carrey’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Christmas morning we each opened our gifts and sent Bo on a treasure hunt to find his present.

Only a few short hours later it looked like this:

Then we feasted on eggs benedict and popped open another bottle of champagne for mimosas.

Around 4pm we switched from mimosas to wine and got started on dinner.

On the menu: Spinach Salad with Pears, Candied Walnuts, and Blue Cheese.

Followed by Ribeyes with Burgundy Butter and Garlic Stuffed Hasselback Potatoes with Herbed Sour Cream. Heavenly.

It was such a relaxing day and an absolutely great first Christmas together!

Monday was the 2nd Annual Operation Jack Satellite Run.

I covered the 10k distance in 1:13 and then tacked on a bit more to round it out at 8 miles. I didn’t PR, nor was it the most enjoyable run I’ve ever done (due to the mimosas & wine the day before), but I went out there and got it done.

And for that, I get a medal.

Five Things Friday

Posted by Melissa on December 23, 2011 4 comments

1. I am super stoked for the upcoming 3-day holiday weekend. Followed by a short 3-day work week, followed by a 4-day holiday weekend, followed by a 4-day work week. Oh, and I didn’t have to use a single vacation day! Seriously awesome.

2. I absolutely cannot wait to put on these gorgeous shoes. I got them from my parents a few weeks ago but I’m not allowed to run in them until Christmas. Since Sunday is a rest day, I’ll be taking them out for Operation Jack on Monday!

3. I made it into the championship game in my Fantasy Football League. It’s total points over a two-week span, but I’m already off to a great start thanks to Arian Foster.

Tomorrow morning I have a ZOOMA training run with Leslie, but afterwards I plan on making myself comfortable on the couch with a mimosa to cheer the rest of my fantasy team on!

4. I’m really excited to be participating in the Operation Jack Satellite Run for the second year in a row. It’s such a great cause and I love that the proceeds benefit the Operation Jack Autism Foundation and Train 4 Autism. Sam is an amazing person. With it being so close to Christmas, I probably won’t ever be able to make it out to CA for the half or full marathon, but it’s awesome that there is a satellite option!

Added bonus: check out this medal – it’s even bigger than Boston’s!

5. I am officially an Ambassador for ZOOMA Texas!

I was just notified this morning so there will be more details to come, but I feel so lucky to have been chosen. It will be an incredible opportunity and I cannot wait to become more involved in Austin’s running community while helping others train for the race in March!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Posted by Melissa on November 11, 2010 4 comments

Let’s take a look at this weekend’s race weather, shall we?

Well that looks just superb. If you’ve ever ran a race before, you know the week prior consists of stalkstalkstalking of the weather.com website. Since the 10-day forecast became available, I’ve been visiting the site everyday. Sometimes three times a day. The forecast has changed countless times in the past week, and I know it will probably change again before race day. But for some reason, I just can’t stop checking!

I’ve never ran a race (or even a training run) in the rain, so I’ve been very fortunate. I think I would be royally irritated to run even 3 miles in a downpour, let alone 13. Lately though I’ve been hearing that rain is PR weather. Have you ever ran a race in a monsoon? Was it absolutely miserable? Did you PR?

In other race-related news, I had initially planned on making two trips down to SA. One on Saturday to pick up my race packet, and one on Sunday morning to the race. These conditions were not ideal because A) 4 hours of driving roundtrip twice in one weekend is brutal, and B) I would have to leave Austin at 2am Sunday morning. However, funds are tight right now and dishing out $150 for a hotel room was not in the budget. Time to suck it up & deal.

I posted a final request on my Facebook page the other day, mentioning the race was only a few short days away. An old friend I worked with back in 2003 commented she now lived in San Antonio, and would like to get together. After a quick email exchange, she invited me to stay at her house Saturday night! Can I just tell you what a relief this is? The idea of being on the road, alone, at 2am made me (and my boyfriend) incredibly nervous. But now? Problem solved Who ever said social networks were useless?

Time is winding down to donate to Train 4 Autism & Operation Jack. And denomination helps, $1, $5, $10 – it doesn’t have to be much! If you have a couple dollars to spare, I would really appreciate it! Thank you in advance to anyone who can donate. You are making a difference

Happy Thursday everyone – only one more day until the weekend – hang in there!

Operation Jack

Posted by Melissa on October 27, 2010 3 comments

During the winter of 2009, I found myself wrapped up in running blogs. Danica at Chic Runner and Sarah at SkinnyRunner amazed me with the amount of miles they covered during the course of a week. Mileage totals I had never ran in my life they were running in 7 days. I was inspired. I set my sights on Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio (the full, but I later downgraded to the half due to an injury) in November 2010.

At the end of January, I discovered a post on Danica’s page talking about Operation Jack and it’s founder, Sam Felsenfeld. Sam is attempting to run at least 1 marathon a week (61 total for the year) to raise Autism awareness. His son Jack was diagnosed with Autism just after he turned 3 years old. He hopes his 2010 year of marathons will help raise money for autism research as well as awareness across the country. He has just 10 marathons left this year to reach 61. Check out these posts to see how he went from couch to marathoner:

Where I Come From

From Unable to Run a Mile to a Full Marathon in 18 Months: Not as Unrealistic as You’d Think

Why I Think Couch to 26.2 is a Reasonable Goal

And then also, he posted another one today after I asked him via Twitter what his pace used to be like before he started BQing like nobody’s business:

The Secret of My Success

One of the races he is participating in is the RnR San Antonio next month. I created the team “Your Pace or Mine” and set up a donation page. Unfortunately, neither of my teammates are going to be joining me, so I will be flyin’ solo – running for Operation Jack! If you would like to make a donation to my team, I would greatly appreciate it! $1, $5, $10 – whatever you can! Fundraising really isn’t my forte; I feel awful asking people for money, especially with the economy the way that it is. Any little bit helps though thank you in advance if you do donate! It’s really for a great cause.

Don’t forget to check out Sam’s blog to watch his progress, and if you’re on Twitter, you can follow him at @operationjack.