{"id":4330,"date":"2014-02-12T02:53:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-12T02:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=4330"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:30","slug":"valentines-day-5k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=4330","title":{"rendered":"VALENTINE’S DAY 5K"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Our good friend, Jane, was involved in organizing a 5K race\u00a0which took place in\u00a0downtown Cap Haitien last Saturday morning and I decided to\u00a0join the race\u00a0even though the heat and schedule here give me plenty of excuses\u00a0to not\u00a0run on a regular basis.\u00a0 Mikenn and Johnny joined me for the morning.\u00a0 The running part would have been much more enjoyable if I had been in shape – all the other aspects of the race were a blast.I’m not sure who all sponsored the run, but the United Nations was heavily involved as well as\u00a0“Joy and Hope”, which was Jane’s connection.\u00a0 I’ve been to a lot of these types of events in the States, so it was fun to see how it’s done in a different culture.\u00a0 There were tents and tables and banners and t-shirts, so things were very well organized.\u00a0 (But I had to laugh when we asked one of the organizers if there were any port-a-johns and\u00a0he pointed us to the trees!) Still, who can complain when the race was free to participants?<\/p>\n\n\n

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We even scored some new shirts!\u00a0 They read “Peace – it’s my choice. And you?”<\/p>\n\n\n

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The race staff was trying their hardest to make sure only runners received shirts, but this little guy came up barefoot and in a torn rag of a shirt and somebody gave him a new one.<\/p>\n\n\n

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There were numerous announcements before the race started from the stage, but I could barely\u00a0hear Mikenn’s translations of those announcements because Haitians love their sound systems at FULL POWER.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n\n\n

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The course started out by some buildings belonging to the UN and wound down one street quite a ways and then …<\/p>\n\n\n

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…turned onto the boulevard that runs along the waterfront.\u00a0 As you can tell, by this point, most of the other runners were far out of my sight.\u00a0 Mikenn and Johnny left me at the starting line and never looked back!<\/p>\n\n\n

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There were a few spectators along the route.I am far from fluent in Creole, but I did understand one man shouting words of encouragement from the sidewalk … to the Haitian man running beside me: “Keep going!\u00a0 Don’t let the foreigner beat you!”A bit further on, I slowed down to walk a bit and yet another spectator yelled, “Kouri, blanc, kouri!”\u00a0 (“Run, white guy, run!”)\u00a0 It was all in good fun –\u00a0even the guy closer to the finish line who looked me over and asked, “Ou mouri?” I must have looked like I was feeling at that point because that translates as “Are you dead?”\u00a0I wheezed, “Wi! M’mouri.”I did manage to run across the finish line … eventually.\u00a0 I met my unlofty goal for the day: I didn’t want to be dead last.Jane (in pink) was there encouraging every finisher.<\/p>\n\n\n

Jane’s husband, Bud, was there after the race with little Sammy.\u00a0 I hadn’t seen either of these two guys since before Christmas – so that was an added bonus to surviving the run.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

After the run, there was entertainment provided by the Nepalese unit of the UN.\u00a0 The crowd really enjoyed the dances these ladies performed.<\/p>\n\n\n

And\u00a0the finale was a Haitian tightrope walker.\u00a0 He pulled himself up on a strap that was\u00a0“taut” between two coconut trees at least 60 feet apart.\u00a0 He did some dancing and posing and walking up there while more VERY LOUD music played.<\/p>\n\n\n

He made it look easy and so when he finished,\u00a0a couple of other folks tried to copy him but couldn’t even get themselves up on the strap, prompting much laughter from the crowd.When we left, Jane was still on the job – in the midst of a group of a dozen men who were having a rather loud disagreement apparently over the finishing order of the fastest runners!\u00a0 I was glad to not be in her shoes!\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our good friend, Jane, was involved in organizing a 5K race\u00a0which took place in\u00a0downtown Cap Haitien last Saturday morning and I decided to\u00a0join the race\u00a0even though the heat and schedule here give me plenty of excuses\u00a0to not\u00a0run on a regular basis.\u00a0 Mikenn and Johnny joined me for the morning.\u00a0 The running part would have been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4344,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4330\/revisions\/4344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}