The Number One Preventable Cause of Death

I don't know about you, but this doesn't sit very well with me.  I thought it would be obesity or lung cancer.  Instead it is something that we have an abundance of, clean water.  Nearly everyone in this country has access to clean water with the turn of a knob or the push of a button.  It is simple for us, but it isn't that way for everyone. 

Here are some facts from World Vision:

• More than 6,000 children under age 5 die each day from diseases spread by unsafe water or lack of basic sanitation and hygiene. 
• Almost 900 million people lack access to safe water.
• 443 million school days per year are lost to water-related illness.

But, do you want to know the good news?

World Vision is doing incredible things to reduce those numbers and ensure that kids and families in Africa and Haiti have access to clean and safe water.  The people at World Vision partner with the communities and uses the resources available to come up with effective and sustainable solutions to provide clean water.  They get the community involved and invested in the projects, which I believe, is the best way to help people.

For all of these reasons, when I heard about the opportunity to join Team World Vision for the Monster Dash Half Marathon, it was a no brainer.  I have been looking for ways that God can use this journey that I am to help others, and this is undeniably a way that I can do just that.

I have a goal of raising $1,310 to help provide access to clean water.  That is $100 for every mile that I will be running.  $1,310 is enough to provide clean water for 26 people for an entire generation.  

Here is where you come in :-)

I would be extremely grateful if you would be willing to support me financially and help me reach my goal of providing water for 26 people.  I know that $50 is a lot of money and most of you don't have that kind of cash sitting around.  No worries!  A donation of ANY size would help get me closer to my goal.  $1, $5, $13.10....whatever you feel called to give is getting us one step closer to helping our brothers and sisters in Haiti in Africa.  If it doesn't fit in your budget right now, no problem, you can donate any time between now and October 26.  (I won't hound you, but the link to give will stay in the upper right hand corner of my blog.)

Everyone deserves clean water.  Everyone needs clean water.  You can help them get it.

Click Here to Provide Clean Water

Thank you!

(P.S. It isn't too late to join the team.  Please let me know if you would like to join our team and run for water!)

Change in Plans

Happy Monday!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend and enjoyed the Super Bowl.  I'm not sure I actually paid attention to any of the game or commercials, but had a lot of fun with my family.  My fun included a lot more food than one person should consume in any given day, but I had planned for a day off so I'm back at it this morning.

We're still passing the crud back and forth in our house and I seem to have gotten some of it and haven't been feeling 100% since Saturday so this weekend was pretty low-key.  I did take Lena (oh yeah, by the way, we got a puppy for Christmas) for a walk yesterday.  We went for a two mile walk and my lungs were not at all happy.  It is really sad that 9 degrees feels warm to me lately.  

13 week old Lena - she loves to bite, jump and pee on the floor, but we still love her

 

  So, on to the change in plans.  We've been doing the American Cancer Society "Active for Life" challenge at work.  It is a 10-Week team challenge and we are 2 weeks in with week 3 starting today.  We have 33 people on our team, which is pretty awesome.  We've been trying to come up with a few group activities that we can do together and there are quite a few runners on the team.  A few of the ladies on our team are training together to run the Minneapolis Half Marathon in June.  They tried talking me into it a few weeks ago and I quickly turned them down thinking that June was too soon and I wouldn't be able to do it.  Last week, one of the people running it asked me again and I started thinking a bit more about it.  I looked at the website on Saturday night and saw this



http://www.minneapolismarathon.com/half-marathon-info.html

The course is open for 3 hours and 30 minutes and it is a walker-friendly event.  I can do this!  My only goal is to finish, I'm not going to worry about pace/time, just going to focus on making it 13.1 miles.

I'm going to wait and see how this goes before signing up for the Monster Dash Half Marathon, but I think I'd like to do both of them, that way my entire year is pretty much planned out with goals to reach.    

My co-workers are following the Jeff Galloway training plan so I am going to follow that one as well.  I really like it because there is only one long run each week and when the miles start increasing it really becomes a long run every other week.



 

So training starts today with an off day.  I'm looking forward to a challenge, I desperately need them to keep me motivated, it is so easy for me to start making excuses to not be active if I don't have a goal to work towards.   

Anyone want to join me???  :-)  If I can do it, anyone can do it!