Hi! I was excited up to run my first ever marathon: NYC, running for charity:water's official team ... but it was postponed to next year (still looking forward to it!).

In the meantime, I've signed up for the Mount Desert Island marathon in Bar Harbor, ME. It's a much, much smaller marathon, let's hope this one holds!

-EDIT- MDI was cancelled (along with all other races), so I will be running solo!

While I plan on going bigger for NYC, figured any first-ever marathon is a great excuse to raise a little money for an amazing cause!

I first learned about this incredible organization when Scott Harrison came to speak at a Zappos event; this mission continues to inspire me. We are so lucky to not have to worry about where our next clean glass of water comes from; everyone deserves safe and accessible water as a basic human right. Countless people (mostly women) are forced to spend hours per day hauling (unsafe) water for their families. Access to clean water = safety and freedom.

You and I can't raise enough money to end the problem - but what we can do is take a small number of people, and change their lives dramatically for the better. On average, it costs charity:water $40 to give one person in a developing country permanent access to clean water ... just FORTY DOLLARS. That's incredible.

I am donating the first $200 to my campaign; even better, Nike will match this amount - and any others by Nike folks :). The match won't tally in my total, but still pretty cool.

My goal for the campaign is to raise an additional $1,000 - and that's where you come in. Between me, you, and the Nike match - if we can get to $1,400, that would mean permanent access to clean water for 35 people! A pretty damn cool reason to run 26.2 miles, right?

Thanks for reading!