Why am I here?/Support Operation Jack!!!

Welcome! I can't believe I'm actually following through with sharing parts of my life via a blog. The thought of writing a blog has come and gone at various times in my life...gone because I felt I had nothing notable to share with the world. I still have nothing so fantastic to express but since I'm jumping on the crazy train, I might as well share this adventure with whomever is bored or intrigued enough to read my ramblings.

I'm now training for my first 100 mile race...yes, that's 100 miles run as one run over the course of less than 31 hours. Crazy? Yep. I ordered my straight jacket the same day I forked over the application fee. I hope writing will at least help me stay slightly sane as I deal with all the ups and downs I face over the next four months leading up to the San Diego 100. Along the way, I'll share my thoughts so that you can know what on earth goes through someone's head as they prepare for that type of event.

I started running in May 2007 for reasons I'll explain another day. Running provided me with an outlet for dealing with hardships and stresses in life and I was quickly hooked. I found a wonderful online community on Runner's World and I made several friends via that site. Those are the people who have influenced me to test my physical and mental limits over the past two years. I mailed in my application for the SD 100 exactly 14 days ago and got confirmation that I was conditionally accepted 12 days ago; that's the day I realized I needed to start training (yikes!!! How do I do that?!). Thankfully, I already have 2 road marathons booked for this month, so I'll use those as slow training runs instead of running them as fast as I can (pretty slow right now for me....but I digress).

In two days, I'm running the Surf City Marathon for the third consecutive year; however, this time I'm doing it to support Operation Jack, a charity organized by my friend Sam. Sam's middle son is autistic and Sam is running 60 marathons this year(!!!) in order to raise awareness for autism and to raise money to support Train 4 Autism. Train 4 Autism is a charity that provides people with the resources they need to train for and complete an athletic event while raising funds for an autism-related charity of their choosing. Autism is being diagnosed in about 1 in 100 children, a statistic that scares the "science teacher" side of me. Since autism is the fastest growing diagnosed neurological disorder in the US, there is a tremendous need to support autism charities.

Sam, me, Billy around 2am July 4th (stay tuned for "why")

Since I sprained my ankle less than two weeks ago, I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will cooperate so that I finish the race without pain and, more importantly, that people will support Operation Jack/Train 4 Autism since that's the reason why I am staying off the trails this weekend and pounding the pavement in Huntington Beach instead. Thankfully the pouring rain (I thought it never rained in southern Cal?!) is making being off the trails slightly easier today, which is good since I really need to work on my to-do list and get ready to rock-n-roll Sunday morning.

If you're running Surf City, I hope to see you before the race! If you don't run, I hope that at some point this blog encourages you to put on some shoes and pick up those feet...it's good for you, I promise.


-Rachel