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Health & Fitness

Last call to vote for Mason Neck State Park--it has a shot at 1st place and $100,000

The contest ends at midnight Monday and Saturday and Sunday are double-vote days--so one person can cast 32 votes each day by using all three voting methods.

We've done well the last few days and as of Friday morning are much closer to 1st place (less than 40,000 votes behind) than to 3rd place (more than 102,000 ahead). First place is $100,000 from Coca Cola, 2nd is $50,000, and we still have a shot at 1st.

The contest would be effectively over except for the crazy rules that allow retroactive voting--at 10 votes/day--on the MapMyFitness site, so one new voter today could cast 506 votes by midnight Monday. The #3 park got 97% of its votes last week from MMF, almost all from people reporting a "fitness activity" for days back to June 6 (MNSP got about 85% of its votes this way). So we're asking our supporters to use the MMF and report activity (at least 20 minutes of doing most anything) for as many days as possible. Instructions are below--thanks for your support.

Also NBC4 has posted a very nice story about the contest: 
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Mason-Neck-State-Park-Close-to-Winning-100000-Grant-From-Coca-Cola-215090671.html

And we will be manning a table at REI in Woodbridge on Saturday 10-6 to recruit voters--stop by if you can--15200 Potomac Town Place, Suite 140 (near Wegman's).

The easiest way to get started voting is to email the MNSP supporters at voteforwildlife@gmail.com. They can do the whole setup for you, or check that you've done it correctly, or answer any questions. They are very dedicated ladies who got interested in MNSP through their involvement with eagles.

To do it yourself, go to coke.com/parks and sign up. Then keep that page open and click on the link to MapMyFitness and sign up there. (They ask for birth date and gender but you can fib if you don't want to give out personal info.) Then click on "Log Workout", select a date and an activity for that date, and enter the number of minutes (at least 20). And do it for as many days as possible back through June 6 (you can even report some days as rest days and still get credit). 

There is also a link to FourSquare.com, where you can sign up, enter your location as Lorton, and then cast 5 votes a day (but not retroactively) by going to foursquare.com/mobile and "checking in" at Mason Neck State Park. 
To check that your votes are being counted, click on "My Activity" on the Coke site, preferably after 8:30 PM.

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