Running and Florida (and running in Florida)

My apologies for not posting, I have been so busy ever since last weekend!!!

Well, first of all, last Saturday was a great run. We ran across the George Washington Bridge again this week, but this time we ran into New Jersey for what Ramon calls the "hardest run of the season." The run had many large hills, making it quite exciting. The thing I realized, actually, is that when you're constantly going up or down a hill, time and distance seem to go by really fast!!

I finally had time to take another video of Ramon (our coach) at practice on Saturday. It is very short, but really (I think) gives a little picture of his personality. Sorry, I forgot again that I can't rotate this!!



Good times! So after practice, I had to make a train to the airport at 1:20pm. Therefore, I had to cut my run a little short and as a result ended up running the last half of the run on my own. And even though I love my running buddies, I must say that I actually really enjoyed the run and I was feeling really good and probably could have run a few more miles if I'd had time. This was extremely encouraging to me!

So I mentioned that I needed to go to the airport on Saturday. This weekend, I went to Florida to visit my grandpa and Nana at their place in the Villages. My trip to Florida was amazing! The weather was beautiful. It was 80 and sunny in central Florida. I had a great time with my grandparents. I got there Saturday night and we had dinner and hung out until I got tired (which didn't take long after the run Saturday morning!

Then on Sunday, they took me on a little tour of their town. The Villages is a retirement community with 65,000 residents who come there to live out (as the slogan says "the best of your life." The Villages has 40 golf courses and two "fake" downtowns that kind of remind me of Seaside Florida (where the Truman Show was taped). The towns were built within the last few years but they try to make them seem old and even hang fake plaques outside the buildings with fake history and stuff. One of the towns is a Key West/Victorian theme with pastel houses with white trim and such. Then the other downtown is Spanish themed with red brick roofs and stucco buildings.

Then they have live music in the square every night in each downtown so we went to dinner and then saw the live music on Sunday night. My grandpa's favorite singer, Norman Lee was performing, and it was a great time. Norman does a lot of old rock and roll and country music and everyone dances in the square. Now, most of these dancers are either residents of the village (55 and over) or their children, grandchildren or friends. Well...we had a special treat on Sunday night, the likes of which no one in the village had ever seen. I was lucky enough to capture some video of this experience, which I will share with you now. I cannot provide much context for this, unfortunately, because there isn't any!!





I also laid out by the pool for a couple hours each day and got a pedicure and my eyes waxed. It was great! Here is a picture of me with my grandparents!

My only complaint is that it went by really fast and I had to get up at 3:20 Tuesday morning to catch a van to the airport. Luckily, I was able to sleep in the van and I had the whole row to myself on the plane, so I laid down and slept the entire flight too.

Well, I must get to work, but thank you for reading. Have a great day and please, leave a comment!