First FL Jr SUP Team Practices!

The first Florida Junior SUP Team Practice was such a success!! Most of the team was able to make it to St. Pete Beach for the inaugural practice, which was a blast!! Time was limited because the practice is the same day as the Pacifico Paddle Challenge in order to accommodate the kids and their parents, who come from all over Florida, but it was still really fun!

                                   

First all of the kids introduced themselves. Thankfully, there's a great age range of kids and everyone had someone their own age, and I was able to equally split the group into older kids and younger kids. We worked on race skills--starts, turns, and finishes. I think they all learned a lot from each other! The littler kids paid a lot of attention to the older ones, and they all watched and rooted for each other in the races. It was so awesome to see all the team members making bonds and having fun!

When it came to the race, all of the kids totally brought it. Tanner, a 12 y/o from Destin, won the overall rec race!! 15 year olds Taylor and Connor were third and first, respectively. The littler girls; Dekai, Lindsey, Lina, and Lucy had really strong races, and it's amazing to watch them take on these long, difficult courses. Dekai's sister Milla did the Elite race and kept up pretty well with some of the faster girls! I am super proud of them. They were so grateful to get their team shirts (with an awesome logo by Sharks Creative) and loved the goodie bags my mom and I made up! 

The next weekend I organized an impromptu practice at the Paddle Addict Poker Run with some of the local kids, including Lina Bowers and Lucy Allan. Lina and Lucy are two of the most dedicated 9-year-olds I have ever encountered. They train several times a week, and even to to race courses the day before and paddle the whole route to prepare for their race. Lina is more of a sprinter, while Lucy always sticks with one steady pace. As a result, they go back and forth as to who beats who in their races. But at the end of the day, they're always nothing but happy for the other girl. Lucy came to the practice, even though she had just arrived back in Florida the night before after her spot on the David Letterman Show doing dog tricks!! 

The Marstons came to the practice as well. Gracie and Hailey are 10-year-old twins who are great competitors to Lina and Lucy. Their brother Will is 12 and they're all solid paddlers and good kids. Everyone stayed together through the course and I worked with the kids on stroke the whole time. After, we even had another paddler direct us through SUP Yoga! Our next big team practice isn't until the Orange Bowl in January, but we should have some more mini practice in the meantime :) 

It's so rewarding to put my own interests aside and focus on helping others. It's given me a lot of perspective on what's really important in a world where so many little things are vying for my attention. I see this effort going far and reaching wide, and I'm so happy to be at the start of it!!