Last saturday in Sarasota for a while

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Hello friends and family,
Spent the ENTIRE day at the beach, almost 12 hours and I certainly show it. Lovely racoon eyes, it was either that or squint around the beach all day and nice piece of sun burn on my cleavage. Needless to say worth the blast that it was.

This morning got there around 6:45am so I could make sure I got my free race T-shirt in the size I wanted , which I did. Then found a couple other mote interns who were going to run so we just hung out, talked with Holly and Mandy ,two of the turtle program people and listened to fun music. Then at 730 the fun run/walk one mile began and then at 8am was my 5k. They had you start in based on your speed, if you thought you were pretty fast they tried to usher you towards the front and if you were just doing it for fun towards the back. I chose to start near the front and it was a 3.1 mile race, with 1.5 out and then you turned around and came back in. My time was 23:20 min and my place was 108. I believe there were close to 700 people running or something, I definitely know there were at least 700 people preregistered not including day of walk ups, so that generated a ton of money for the turtle program since registration fees were going for 20-25 dollars! There were lots of yummy oranges, bananas and apples afterwards as well as water and orange juice. Then they did some door prizes and finally winners of the division as well as overall winners.

Drum roll....

I came in 4th place in my division! and so received a yellow ribbon with the name of the race and everything , pretty darn cool. Had I been 9 seconds faster I could have gotten the third place medal which was the time needed to pass the girl who did win it, but I was very pleased with how I did. There were a lot of 79+ people running which was really inspiring!

Then, I met up with kate and courtney who had arrived at the beach and watched the awards ceremony with stacy and michelle and I , and then I spent the rest of the day on the beach with them(K and C). It was a blast. the sun was out in full effect and the water was actually decent enough to wade in. Courtney had brought a soccer ball so we ended up juggling and kicking it around with various guys on the beach. Then later some of their friends came by so we hung out and then another friend came by with a paddle board, and later ended up ordering pizza from papa johns and having it delivered to the beach. That was awesome. Then we just played some more soccer and we were too close to a football game and I turned just in time to see a player come barreling towards me and tackle me. I ended up laying on the ground not sure if I should get up right away and with a huge crowd around me. This one girl started taking pictures and was like " i don't even know you" and I was thinking , then why are you taking photos?! Needless to say I was allright and continued to play soccer and called it quitsys after a while. Now I have a lot of packing to do but it is all good. Tomorrow I'm helping out the turtle program, and Holly said I can help free feed them (use the targets and drop food in the water so I am looking forward to that! Then one last chat with John and finishing up whatever packing I have left. Kinda sad to be leaving all this fun stuff, but can't do it unpaid forever. I'm sure I'll be back at some point, just cause I'm leaving doesn't mean anything at Mote changes so people will be there I'm sure if I ever do return.

Anyways, off to pack my life into my tiny car and head back northwards!
Onward,ho!

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