I heart the Custis Trail

Running buddies: Plunkett, me, Liz

Wow, I can't believe I have not added a post since August 20th of last year. I have really been slacking! A lot has happened since my last post, and I won't try to fill my readers in on everything... but I'll give a quick recap...

Josh and I moved to Greenfield, MA so that I could start a new teaching job and so that he could start earning his college degree. We are in LOVE with Greenfield and we have made some awesome friends since moving here.

Luckily, I found some women at my school who were interested in training for a half marathon with me, and so we ran to get in shape all winter... and in February we started training for real. The picture to the right shows three of us after completing our first 13 mile long run. We are nearly at the end of our training! We will run 13 again next week, then start to taper as we rest up and prepare our bodies for 13.1 miles of racing and fun!

Pictured below during another run from a few weeks back are Josh (who was working today), Jess (who is in Vegas this weekend!!!) and Karen (who just ran 13.1 in a race yesterday in Gloucester!). The six of us make up what we call the SBS running club, named after the school we work/live at.

Liz, Jess, Karen, Josh, Plunkett in Deerfield, MA

 We are training to run the Covered Bridges Half Marathon that runs through Pomfret, Woodstock and Quetchee, Vermont about two hours north of here. Both Jess and Plunkett had never run further than 5 miles in their lives before we started training so this has been a really exciting couple of months as they have reached a new milestone in their running almost every week as we have increased our distance! Not only am I helping to coach our two newbies with the help of veteran runners Karen and Liz... but I am also raising money for a wonderful organization called "David's House".

Liz, Jess, me, Plunkett, Josh in Deerfield, MA

Our race is just three weeks away, and I still need to raise about $100 to reach my goal of raising $500 for their organization. Can you help? Any bit of money you can spare right now is incredibly appreciated. This organization is a house located right next to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital in Lebanon, NH that provides a home away from home for families who have children receiving treatment there. Guests at this house can spend $15 a night or less, depending in their need, so that they can stay closer to their sick children. Many families travel from all over the country to have their children receive treatment at this hospital, so this organization is providing a very important service to families who already have enough to worry about.

I look forward to sharing more stories about our training and our race as we move forward. I also hope to visit David's House while we're in the area for the race, which is just across the border in Vermont. So, if you have a moment and a few extra dollars to spare, please consider clicking this link to donate. Please put my name in the "tribute information" at the bottom, so that I may put your wonderful donation towards my team's total.

Thank you for reading today. I promise I'll be back more often. Oh, and Happy Mother's Day to all of my readers who are Moms :)