And Now, Your Local on the 8's

WINTER IS HERE!! 2 feet of snow, 80 degree weather, Thunderstorms, -1 degrees, more snow, ice storms... It has been AWESOME!

The past couple of weeks have been quite interesting.  Training in the winter is great because it gets me out of the house, out of the gym, and challenges me mentally.  In the past two weeks I have seen just about every weather extreme you could think of. 

Friday, December 17, 2009 at 8PM the snow started to fall on the DC metro area.  By morning there was at least 12 inches of snow on the ground.  Running 3 miles in the snow seemed a little unsafe considering we were expected to receive about a foot more in accumulation.  By 2PM the cars started to pile up outside of Neal's Apartment building, so we put on our shoes and our winter gear and helped pushed cars up a hill on Rt. 1 for about 2.5 hours.  It may not have been 3 miles in training, but I sure did get a work out. 

My flight home to DC was cancelled Saturday morning but I was able to fly home Tuesday morning (December 22).  Just 4 days after running in 2 feet of snow, I was sweating perfusly in 80 degree weather.  What an extreme!  Christmas with the Ackerley's was wonderful.  It made me so grateful for my family.  I am grateful for their health, but I also know that our bond will see us through anything.  I would hate to see one of my family members fall ill, but I know we would support each other.  It made me think of the families supporting loved ones with Leukemia who spent this Christmas in the hospital.  There I was training in 80 degree weather with a family at my side, but really I was running for the loved ones at the side of a blood cancer patient!

By December 26 I was off to Iowa to spend the rest of the holidays with Neal's family.  75 degree stepping onto the plane, 20 degrees stepping off.  As the roads were quite icy, I opted to run in the hotel gym but I was itching to run out on the road.  I had a wonderful time with Neal's family.  Their support is indescribable! The last day I was there we woke up to a temperature of -1 degrees, it was balmy. 

Now I am back in DC where the roads are iced over today.  I hit the trail to run 4 miles but it was just too icy, so I turned around and ran to the gym.  Great run and I'm feeling great!  I am off tomorrow but am super excited for our group run on Saturday morning.  Through TEAM in Training, I run with my team mates on Saturday mornings for our longer runs.  This Saturday the DC TEAM which I'm a part of will be meeting up with the Maryland TEAM and the Virginia TEAM.  I am really looking forward to it!

Thank you all again for your donations and please let your friends, family, and loved ones know of the cause I am running for.  To date I have raised $655.00 (22% of my goal).  Thank you all so much!  We've donated a lot and I still have a long way to go!   

Help me reach $1000 in the next week!  That's only $345 more dollars.  $1000 total raised at the start of 2010!  You can make a donation at http://pages.teamintraining.org/nca/cmc10/ashack

We can do it! - Ashley