Wednesday, September 24, 2014

The Spectrum Road Is A Lonely One...Or Is It?

On World Autism Awareness Day in April I made the decision to share a fact about my life that I kept a secret for years. For the first time I revealed that I have Asperger syndrome.  The biggest challenge for me has been social interaction. I have come a long way from my childhood days. I’d stand at the end of my driveway hoping my neighbors would invite me over to play when I saw them playing in the yard. In those days, I was never comfortable just dropping in.

Today I no longer feel I need to be hand held or rely on one person that I'm comfortable with to act as my security blanket. Within the past 10 years I've made more strides socially than I've ever imagined. All because of one thing, running. To be brief, I took great interest to challenge myself to finish a marathon. Figuring it to be a one time thing, I have currently run 7. Mostly because of the relationships that I've built from the running community in the past 5 years.

Now I'd like to give something back to the community as a way to say thanks. On November 13, I'll attempt to run Casey's course 10 times!! Why am I doing this exactly? I suppose the time has come to let the cat out of the bag as it were. My 40th birthday is November 13. If you're keeping score, it falls on a Thursday. Every Thursday evening my running club (Somerville Road Runners) hosts a free run. The distance is 4.06 miles and if you do the math, the total is 40+ miles.  Call it 40 for 40. This was something I thought of a few years ago. I said to myself "Why not?" I don't figure a surprise party is coming my way. So I'll celebrate in a way that's unique and different.

For the record I'll be starting the run early in the morning . It figures to take the better part of the day to complete. I will definitely have updates in future posts of how my training is coming along and my game plan. As of now I just wanted to get the word out. 40 for 40, November 13. Stay tuned...

6 comments:

  1. Awesome, man. I am proud to have you as a friend. (I'll run a few of those loops with you if you want company - not all of them because I'm not hardcore enough).

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  2. Wow, Aaron. 40 miles? That's an incredible goal and I want to be there for a few of those laps as well. I am open days so I could run or even walk some with you while others are in work. Keep us all posted so we can coordinate support for you. This is quite a doozy for your first blog entry:-)

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