4 hours 49 minutes 20 seconds.

That was Jonathan Brunot’s time in this year’s New York City Marathon. Today’s New York Times details how his race went:

Jonathan aced [the NY Marathon] Nov. 2 on his first attempt in 4 hours 49 minutes 20 seconds, including timeouts for a slight tantrum at Mile 22 (he refused to drink his PowerGel beverage), a slight leg cramp at Mile 23 (payback for not hydrating) and a slight fumble near the finish line (he paused to wave and scream and applaud himself when he caught sight of his tearful mother, Olga, in the bleachers).

Jonathan doesn’t know he didn’t quite nail Mr. Del-Cid’s goal of 4:30. He also doesn’t know Mr. Del-Cid’s goal for 2009 is for Jonathan to run the marathon in under four hours. Time and goals are irrelevant concepts to him. But he will surely recognize the race: It’s word No. 14 in his lexicon. “Vincent,” and “to run” are words Nos. 11 to 13.

Jonathan dressed himself in running gear and bolted down two bagels before the race, and he heard, parroted and retained a complicated new word: marathon. Or, as he gleefully mispronounced it the other day, “Malathon, malathon,” while squirming self-consciously next to his coach on a sofa in the home he shares with his oft-exhausted parents. They double as his 24/7 caretakers. Though he is much less exhausting since running liberated him and, in a sense, them.

(”Maraton” ’s the name of a Korean movie based on the true story of Bae Hyong-Jin, who’s autistic and who’s a marathon runner.)

And, Jonathan’s father, Dr. Verlaine Brunot, is “so convinced of the marathon’s positive impact on Jonathan that he is training him for the bicycle phase of an Oyster Bay triathlon.”

Think Charlie may have to join Jonathan in training for that someday—–he and Jim were out on their bikes for over 2 hours today (minus the time for a snack stop).

It being the “dog days of August”; us being on vacation at the beach house; the 2008 Olympics taking place; Charlie being a boy who loves loves loves to swim—-I am indulging in making a bit of an Olympic (”citius altius fortius“).

More than a few people have said to me that life raising an autistic child is not so much a sprint as a marathon. In the beginning, after you first get the diagnosis, it feels that you have to run to your utmost abilities, until you’ve drawn your last breath and then still have to give it your all: So parents race to find out and try so many treatments and therapies for their child, so parents hurry hurry hurry and “give their all” to “recovering a child from autism.” You can read many an online (and book) account of children “recovered” from autism, often through various biomedical, alternative treatments. A recovered child, it’s suggested: Now those are parents who’ve won their event, who stand on the podium and get the gold medal of autism parenthood.

And then there’s “those others.” Whose children still have their diagnosis, still are in self-contained special ed classrooms with a 1:1 teacher:student ratio; who still need speech therapy and 1:1 care all the time. Who need psychiatric medications. Who don’t have any peer-aged friends. Who live with a list of “nevers” and “nots” that seems to only get longer as the days pass.

Yeah, no medal for us; no “history-making” records set for us—-yes, I’ll say it—-losers.

This is pretty pessimistic thinking of course, and not at all how Jim and I see our life with Charlie. I think I’m a mom who’s hit the proverbial jackpot for the proverbial gold: For the zillionth time, life raising an autistic son ain’t easy. But everything, absolutely everything, is better—shimmers gold—thanks to a boy named Charlie.

I have been noting Jim’s and my worries about Charlie in the ocean this year. He is a far better swimmer than both of us—Jim has endured a serious back injury—Charlie understands that he’s supposed to “swim between the flags,” but that doesn’t mean he always does this, and sometimes he can’t help drifting outside those boundaries because of the current. Today he got very annoyed at both of us for calling him to swim “over here,” and tugging and coaxing him in the lifeguard-designated swim space and I felt like such a nag.

But hey, that’s part of The Parenthood, right? Having to play The Bad Guy, the “cop,” the disciplinarian. Having to set limits and rules and boundaries.

Once upon a time, Jim and I would have thought, maybe Charlie will just ever understand what we’re telling him. Today it was so apparent that he not only understood the flag concept, but that he was peeved: Why couldn’t he swim where he wanted to? Isn’t one wave as good as the next? And Charlie really is such a good swimmer, sensing every wave as easily as breathing and just as at ease under water as floating on it; Jim and I are klutzy landlubbers, compared to the Kingfish. But rules are rules and, the ocean being the ocean, a parent must err on the side of caution, and so the glorious swim out to sea that Charlie wanted to undertake after the lifeguards had left was curtailed, and he was not happy and told us so in wordless ways.

Later on, after Charlie (very tired, and tanned) was sound asleep, we were watching Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt. We watched them win; we watched their cameras pan over to their mothers, screaming cheers and victory dancing in the stands. Most of us mothers and parents aren’t going to see our kids compete for Olympic medals but I know we cheer as less hard, we rearrange our lives in pursuit of something bigger, we give up so we can give all, we gain.

I see Charlie in the waves and I feel that glow of victory. Because we’ve, he’s, worked so hard and persevered; kept trying; managed to endure; simply glories to be in his element working his body through the water or on the race course, and beams with pride at what he can do.

This vacation got off to a slow start. But we seem to have hit a groove, found our pace, and are moving onward, faster, higher, and stronger, even at high tide in big and crashing waves.

As a freshman at Leominster High School in Massachusetts, Michael Comeau joined the wrestling team. An article in today’s Sentinel and Enterprise notes that being on the team has helped Comeau—who was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome at the age of 12—to develop social skills. (And to learn to take down a teammate on the mat.) As his mother, Amy Comeau, notes, “‘Before I knew it, he was a member of the team……..It was pretty exciting for us because he’s never shown any interest in sports.’”

If Charlie has any inclination for this sport, I don’t think I’ll be practicing with him…….

Thanks to autism, 15-year-old Kyle Cramer of Coburg, Oregon, is aiming to compete in the Olympics in archery, KMTR reports:

Kyle has captured state and national championships, setting records along the way. Autism no longer holds him back, but helps him to achieve.

Wayne Endicott, owner of the Bow Rack Pro Shop says, “Kyle’s handicap becomes his ability in his archery, because Kyle can be so focused. When you give him instructions he cannot not do it.”

Kyles dad agrees, “The autism almost helps him, because he can focus and concentrate so well. He’s unstoppable.”

And so a “weakness” becomes the basis for ability.

It was about three years ago as Charlie was turning eight that I stopped carrying him. He was always big for his age and I developed a bit of a muscle in my left arm from holding him, balanced on my hip—-he weighs as much or more than me now and the babe-in-arms days are indeed over. Then I read about 33-year-old Melanie Roach in today’s New York Times: She has three young children, one of whom, Drew, is 5 years old and autistic; owns a gymnastics facility; is married to a state legislator; and is training for the Olympic trials in weightlifting. At 5 feet 1 inch tall and weighing 117 pounds, she can lift 238 pounds over her head. She’s been through a plethora of injuries to her elbow and back:

The problems she encountered in competition were nothing compared with the challenge she confronted with Drew after his autism was diagnosed in 2005. Roach said she was preoccupied with everything he would never be able to do — school dances, church missions, college classes. He did not have bad days; he had bad weeks, bad months, filled with relentless tantrums.

“It was literally in a week my life changed,” Roach said. “I went into depression. I went through a mourning process. Almost like I lost a child.”

She said she would kneel at his bedside every night, praying he would get better.

In December 2005, Roach, a Mormon, went to see her bishop. “This is not what I signed up for,” she said.

“This is exactly what you signed up for,” he replied. That message not only changed her outlook about Drew, it changed her outlook about weight lifting.

“She learned that no matter how much money and time she put into it, she couldn’t change the outcome,” said her husband, Dan. “That has really helped with lifting. In the end, it’s the same concept.”

Roach sounds like she’s already winning big—-and talk about working mothers.

(Still, I think I’ll still be asking Charlie to help me carry in the groceries.)

The $1000 yearling named Autism Awareness who won the El Camino Derby at 62-1 odds is out with a knee injury, according to the Thoroughbred Times. They do say that horses—even wit a name like Autism Awareness—-can go bad overnight like strawberries….

Yes, and a horse who beat the odds Saturday at the El Camino Real Derby at Bay Meadows in northern California, as reported in Bloodhorse. With jockey Luis Contreras, Autism Awareness won by 1 1/2 lenghths while covering the 1 1/16 miles in 1:43.17. The horse won $90,000 for his El Camino victory and paid off at $126, beating 62-1 odds. Owner Johnny Toboada has an 8-year-old autistic son, Renzo, and Autism Awareness has a sister, Cure Autism, also owned by Toboada. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s already a deal in the works to add a puzzle piece to the jockey’s silks. And if the horse is entered in the Kentucky Derby, there’ll be some interesting headlines like “Autism Awareness runs for the roses”……….

“Ernie Els,” Jim says to me just before dinner.

“Yes, Ernie Els,” I respond: We’ve both read reports about Els’s 5-year-old son, Ben, having autism, me because the story came up on a news feed, Jim because he has a certain interest, or rather a history, in golf.

For many, many years (and even a bit more recently than might be supposed), Jim was a caddy at a certain club in New Jersey. Something about the walking with two bags of clubs (and two umbrellas, in the event of a storm) up and down on the grass under the summer sun helped him focus his ADHD energy. One of Jim’s longstanding friends is a professional caddy, with perpetually strong shoulders and a deep tan. Jim’s friend went to college (engineering school) for one semester and then it was back to the links and a life of odd jobs: Driving people to the airport, serving as the sexton for a church (for awhile), composing showtune-like music. He’s never been married, lived with his mother until she died a few years ago, keeps to himself. I had noted that his conversations with Jim always involved the repeating retelling of certain stories over and over, about the caddy master, or Mrs. B, or the General and his dog, and that Jim’s friend’s speech has a declarative, deliberative quality: Jim’s friend, it seems likely, has Asperger’s, undiagnosed.

A pleased smile always came over his face when Jim went through various stories of their days caddying together. When I first met Jim, he was still driving up to the golf course in the summers and waiting his turn in the caddyshack. And so, in the summer of 1994, I found myself watching the US Open for the first time and, to keep myself interested in the game, choosing a golfer to root for.

The golfer was—-for no particular reason—Ernie Els, and he won that US Open, all those years ago. And now it’s Ernie Els again.

Looks like Els is going to become the next celebrity autism spokesperson, and for Autism Speaks in particular: The Dallas News quotes Els talking about an “epidemic” and about searching for a “cure” (there go those buzzwords), and about his son being a “lovely boy.” The paper also describes a PGA Tour commercial in which Els plays a math teacher adding the scores on a golf card and his 8-year-old daughter, Samantha, plays a student, and I’m hoping that education and teaching autistic kids in ways suited to their learning and sensory needs can be as much a part of Els’s message about autism.

That would be a double eagle, at the very least.

“Four minutes of fame” came to teenager Jason McElwain when he scored 20 points in the final four minutes of a Greece Athena High School basketball game. That was almost two years ago—-a book by “J-Mac” and Daniel Paiser is out, The Game of My Life: a True Story of Struggle, Triumph and Growing Up Autistic. After those four minutes, McElwain became a national celebrity and his famous minutes on the court played and replayed on CNN, ESPN, and local newscasts across the country.

Well, last Wednesday night as Charlie and I were heading out the door for Special Olympics basketball, he ran back in to grab his ball and held onto it in the backseat of the car. He’s made one basket so far (Charlie is tall for his age, but McElwain has a few inches on him still). But there was just something about being there in the gym and on the court with other kids and the coaches and the parents on the sidelines. While the older kids were scrimmaging, Jim had Charlie practice shooting and Charlie held the ball over his head and threw (he has not yet made basket #2). Charlie gave his dad a lot of hugs and his eyes were bright, as was his whole face—–just from knowing that he was with the team, like McElwain, once upon a February night with the Greece Athena Trojans.