Summer Beach Run

Each summer every Tuesday evening is the summer beach runs. It is sponsored by Sarasota County Parks & Recreation and The Manasota Track Club. They hold two runs each week, the first one is for the kids a half mile down the beach and back. The adult run is usually to the wall (point 'o rocks) about 3 miles or so, and sometimes they have a cross country run through the soft sand and playground and all around. The kids sign up and each week they run gets counted, after four runs they get a free T shirt. After each run they get a ribbon and a freeze pop! Maranda has been doing this since she was 3 and has every T shirt to prove it. It has really grown over the years and it's a good thing that Siesta Beach can handle it.

We were a little last this week so we just hopped on the beach over another ramp and skipped the crowded pavilion.

Headed toward where the starting line is you can see how crowded it is.

At Siesta Beach there is a long walk on the soft white sand to get to the water. After the rain it's usually easier because it's packed down. It's not bad though I love it.

We usually set up by the green life guard stand so Wade can find us when he gets there. He comes here straight from work and runs in the second run.

We are at the green life guard stand looking toward the south where the run is going on. We missed it this week but stayed to watch the second runners. The beach is full of families and they usually stay to swim and just hang out at the beach. i always run into a lot of kids from school here.

As we were sitting there the typical Florida, afternoon, summer weather comes rolling in. It seems funny that we still need to wear our sunglasses when you look at these black clouds. Often we'll see some type of clouds during these runs. This time there were some pretty dark clouds, but not any thunder or lightning. Wade usually has to call from work to see if it's raining here and if we should even go.

Everyone's leaving and the run is still in progress! Still no lightning. Hey where is everyone going?

Looking towards the north it's still pretty bright.

The wind is picking up you can see the sand blowing.

We decided to pack it up but still wanted to wait until Wade was finished running before we left, still no lightning.

No rain and no lightning (otherwise we would of been gone if there were lightning) but the wind is really blowing the sand. It looks like a blizzard blowing the white sand around like that.

Maranda wasn't happy that we stayed, we were really getting sand blasted. Think of it as a full body exfoliation! It didn't start to rain until Wade was back, he was surprised to see us still there, but we didn't care if we got wet. By the time we got to the parking lot it was full of cars going nowhere. We were soaked and decided to wait with Wade in his truck until the rain let up a little. We weren't going anywhere anyway. It was like a concert just let out with the traffic in the parking lot all jammed up. We had to wait to even back out of the spot. Good thing we were not in a hurry!