In case I didn’t make myself clear yeat…
January 8th, 2010, 12:33pm by JakeBefore I start, let me just say that this is a long story that’s going to end with an appeal to contribute money. If you want to skip the treat of reading of lovely prose, just click here and donate now, since the event is only 2 weeks away. But read on anyways.
SPECIAL BONUS EXPIRES AT MIDNIGHT TONIGHT! Today only, for each contribution I get, I’ll match the first $5. So make your dollar go further, and make Jake poorer, by contributing today, Friday. Thanks! I promise not to ask more than several dozen more times.
Read on about how this is a sprint AND a marathon.
Let me explain that one. So last year, I decided to run the Diamond Valley Lake Half Marathon. It was a fun race, mostly on a dirt road around a new reservoir. Largely by chance, I happened to snap a photo Sam Felsenfield, aka 261 to 26.2 on the Runner’s World forums, mostly the Southern California Running & Racing forum. I knew Sam on there way back before I got them to change the name of the forum (true story). He really liked the photo, blurry bits and all, and still uses it as his avatar on a bunch of social networking sites. Cool! Oh, and I have some more photos on Flickr.
But we’ll get back to Sam. First, I got to get back to Diamond Valley Lake… because it looked like such fun to run around! So yeah, I went back for a long training run in April. And the next day I tripped as I was walking down a hill w/ my rollerblades, banged my knee and basically didn’t run for 4 months. Ooph. But we’ll get back to Diamond Valley Lake.
In the meantime, Sam had begun this quest to raise funds to battle Autism, to help his son Jack. And not in a little way, by running a race or two. Nope, he was going ALL OUT! He was going to run 60 marathons in 2010! And not only was he going to raise money for all those races, he was going to get a team of runner to also raise money each raise. Whoa! So we have the Operation Jack website. And the Operation Jack Facebook page. And the Operation Jack Twitter account. The blog. Honestly, I can’t keep up with everything. But I believe in Jack’s cause, and I love his passion. So I asked how could I help him? First, with 60 marathons, dozens will require travel travel out of the state. So I offered 2 of the frequent flier tickets that I can never manage to use to help Sam travel for his cause.
But surely, I could do a bit more, right? Now, I’ve never done a fund raising marathon before– I just like to run. But this is a different situation. So I decided to support Sam in his cause, and run a marathon to raise money for Jack. But which race? Well, if you’ve been paying attention, you can probably guess the answer– the Diamond Valley Lake Marathon. I’ve joined the team already! It’s convenient, less than 2 hours from Manhattan Beach. And it’s early in the year, January, so I can help get Sam off to a strong start.
So here it is: the naked appeal for cash. That part is a sprint– it’s only 2 weeks away! Skip on over to my fund raising page. Kick in a few bucks if you can– $10 is good, $25 is better, $100 is outstanding, even $5 is welcome. No idea how much I’ll raise, but with your help I’m sure we’ll help Sam and his quest, via Operation Jack, to beat Autism. Thanks.