La Crosse, Wis. - Ashley Kumlien, a former UW-L soccer player and middle distance track runner, plans to run from California to New York, approximately 3,200 miles, in six months to raise money for multiple sclerosis (MS). Her mother suffers from the disease.

Kumlien plans to run from March 22 through Sept. 22 and will have to run at least 20 miles a day to accomplish her goal.

Kumlien earned a bachelor's degree in exercise and sport science from UW-L in 2007. The 25-year-old Brookfield native is a certified "Adventure Boot Camp" instructor and personal trainer and founder of MSRuntheUS Inc. She set up a non-profit organization to fund her run to raise donations to fight MS.

"In order to inspire the donations toward this cause I wanted to do something big," Kumlien explains, "something a few hundred people have done before, but something many would consider out of their realm of possibility." Only 200 people — 12 of them women — are known to have crossed the U.S. on foot.

Read more about the project at www.msruntheus.com. Find out more about exercise and sport science at UW-L at www.uwlax.edu/sah/ESS/index.htm.