Help For A Friend: Looking For Donations

Again, I don’t do this often but when the opportunity to do some good, give back, and help out a friend presents itself, I will make an exception.

http://pages.teamintraining.org/ri/nikesf12/nzelenak#My-Fundraising-Page

First, a little background. I met Nicole through the Internet, as a direct result of this blog. I was on the Couch to 5K Facebook page, responding to someone’s post (which was most likely talking about blogs, weight loss, or both) and mentioned this blog. Nicole checked it out and immediately realized the same thing I did after she reached out to me to offer support in my endeavors: that we have very similar situations, challenges, and goals.
She has been a huge supporter in everything I’ve done, fitness-wise from that point on, and I hers as well. It’s like we each have our own little cheering section out there (outside of the requisite friends and family) from a couple of states away. She lives up in New England but I won’t hold that against her, because she is a native Philly girl,  so even though she’s an export, she still gets cool points. Unless of course you are a Patriots fan. If that’s the case Nicole, then you’re dead to me.

Although I have never *physically* met her (I mean she is a “virtual friend”, not anything sexual…just in case your mind was in the gutter there- and I know some of you were going there…you know who you are) anyway, I digress. I feel like I’ve known her for some time now, between all of our interactions and reading her blog (speaking of which…www.runningwhilemommy.blogspot.com …check it out).

Ok, to the point: she, like I, has set the goal of a half marathon. Nicole has actually took the (incredibly ballsy) step of registering and is all signed up for the Nike Women’s marathon this October out in San Fran. She is doing this as part of a team. Her training, preparation, and running of the race will all aided by a group of women called TNT, short for Team In Training. This is also short for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team In Training. The name of the team should tell you a lot about why she is running/ fundraising, but the short version of the heart wrenching story is that the team is all running in memory of one of their friend’s daughter who passed from the disease. The race is being held on what would have been her 16th birthday weekend.

So needless to say, Having a friend suffer this type of loss makes this is a charity very near and dear to Nicole’s heart.

She had been charged with some pretty aggressive fundraising goals, and even though she would never ask me, I’m taking it upon myself to throw her a bone here and see if I can’t help out a friend and a very worthwhile cause. Please see the link above and below this article if you are interested in reading more of her story or donating. I know times are tight, but if you can spare anything, I know it would be greatly appreciated.

I hope this finds everybody well and we will return to our regularly scheduled weight loss / running blogging operations tomorrow.

Have a good one.
Andy

http://pages.teamintraining.org/ri/nikesf12/nzelenak#My-Fundraising-Page