Homestead Hospital’s 5k Run … or reporting in the cold
09 Jan 2010 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: BAPTIST HOSPITAL, COLD, finish line, Homestead 5k run, RUNNERS, South Florida, WEATHER
Well, oh well. I am staggered to see the resilience of our Southern Floridians. It is Saturday morning and it feels colder than the 60 degrees registered at 7:00 a.m. I heard temperatures will continue to drop as the day progresses.
So here I am, at the Homestead site of Baptist Hospital. The event goes on, as they say, “rain or shine,” but did anyone mention if the temperature drops more than 20 degrees than the usual the race should go on? Let’s just say that I am glad I am not one of them.
I stood out to get some shots of the runners as they made their way to the finish line on this hazy, rainy, nippy morning. The small crowd cheered vigorously to the runners dressed in shorts with scarfs and gloves crossing the line to the beat of the B52s and David Bowie. And instead of water some runners would get coffee from the Dunkin Donuts stand. It is hard to imagine anyone would want to run or even be out here. I know all I wanted to do is crawl back into my car, turn on the heat and drink my double shot cafe con leche.
I stand near the DJ station not because of the music, but because it is the only tent with the sides rolled down. I wait for some more of the runners to cross the finish line so I can take a picture. Meanwhile, the temperature continues to drop. After a few minutes I tell myself, “forget about it, I am heading back to my car.” I get my jacket, scarf and I am going to write my blog and maybe get a picture of the front of the hospital to post on this blog. On my way back to the car, I speak with two of the runners for a brief moment, one of them is from the Keys and the other one is a hospital employee, they tell me they did not expect such cold weather and one of them expressed how hard it was for him to breath in the cold air.
Back in the car, it is much nicer watching the runners from this cozy site, my coffee still warm and my fingers are now thawing. And yes, having moved to South Florida from New York over fifteen years ago, I can say this is COLD weather. I used to run and cycle in the fall up north and the worst part is trying to breath, not to mention how your nose and ears feel like they were frozen and ready to fall off – not a good feeling. Anyway, I cannot imagine what these happy, sunny people are experiencing this morning. Nonetheless, all of them are winners, you ought to be crazy to be running around in shorts and scarfs.
The good news is that this is only another proof of our South Florida strength to overcome just about anything that comes our way. Bring it on, winter, bring it on!
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