Event Name: The EdFed Race for Education at the Superintendent’s 5K
Location: Miami, FL
Most races we shoot have a start line. This one had a wall.
Saturday, March 7, 2026, half past seven in the morning, Maurice A. Ferre Park in downtown Miami. Biscayne Bay on one side, the museums and the skyline on the other, and between them a crowd so wide and so deep that from where we stood with a long lens, you couldn’t see the back of it. This was the 11th annual EdFed Race for Education at the Superintendent’s 5K, put on by the Miami-Dade County Public Schools Foundation, and it pulls from more than 200 public schools across the county. Parents, kids, teachers, principals and district staff, all in the same blue shirt, all in one place.
Here’s what that adds up to. When the mats went quiet, 4,068 people had finished the 5K. Another 94 kids finished the Student 1 Mile, and the two-to-nine-year-olds got their own Kid’s Dash, which isn’t timed and doesn’t need to be. Southern Timing ran the chips for all of it, which is no small job at this size.
And almost nobody came alone. The first family we photographed all morning was standing by the bike racks before the sun was fully up: Alexander Cano (bib 2160), his daughter Chloe Cano (bib 2161), and Yochabel Cano (bib 2162), in matching blue shirts and rainbow tutus. Alexander went on to run 32:04. Chloe, who is 11, and her mom finished nine seconds apart — 59:21 and 59:30 — which tells you exactly how that race went.
The Numbers: What 4,068 Finishers Actually Looks Like
We shoot a lot of 5Ks in South Florida. A good one draws 200 people. A great one draws 500. This one drew more than eight times that, from 113 different cities and towns, and the finish line stayed busy for well over an hour.
The age range went from 4 years old to 86, which is not a typo. Roberto Jakubowicz (bib 4206) is 86, finished in 1:08:41, and took second in the men’s 75-and-over group. Then there’s Elizabeth Bloise (bib 3949), who is 81 and ran 28:02. She won the women’s 75-and-over division outright and placed 364th overall out of 4,068 — meaning 2,213 runners under the age of 41 finished behind her. Sit with that one for a second.
We found Ana Gonzalez (bib 1009) on the steps before the start in her Team EdFed shirt, and Ann Whitmarsh (bib 5457) of Miami Beach a little further along the same wall. Ann is 72. She ran 44:25 and finished third in the women’s 70-74 division.
Caitlyn Rubin (bib 5418) of Miami held her bib up for us and pointed at it like she meant business, which she did — she ran 29:55, 530th overall, ninth in the women’s 30-34 group. Mallorie Milord (bib 5159) was still pinning hers on, laughing, about ten minutes from the gun. She finished in 35:41.
Kid Energy: Nearly Half the 5K Field Was Under 18
Here’s the number that actually tells you what this event is.
Of the 4,035 finishers with an age listed, 1,733 were under 18. That’s about 43 percent of everybody who crossed the line. 706 were under 14. 235 were under 10.
Read that again, because it’s genuinely unusual. At a normal road race, kids are a sprinkle — a few fast teenagers up front, a couple of little ones holding a parent’s hand at the back. Here they were the whole story. Elementary schoolers in matching school shirts. Middle schoolers sprinting, blowing up, walking, then sprinting again. High school cross country kids treating it like a real session.
The youngest finishers of the full 5K were four years old. Four. We’ve watched grown adults talk themselves out of a 5K on a perfect morning, and these kids just went and did it.
And when the kids’ race went off under the arch, it looked like this — a wall of blue shirts and small legs coming straight at us, with downtown Miami stacked up behind them. It is our favorite kind of chaos to photograph.
Out of the Arch: The Opening Mile on Biscayne Boulevard
Trishul Siddharthan (bib 2764) came out of the start arch in a Key West Triathlon tank, already working, and ran 22:52 — 81st out of 4,068, and sixth in the men’s 40-44 group. That’s a strong morning in any field, let alone one this crowded.
A few waves back, Ylbania Lopez (bib 4357) of Opa Locka spotted the lens and gave us a thumbs-up mid-stride, grinning, surrounded on all sides by blue shirts. She finished in 48:05. Both of those are the same race. That’s kind of the point of this one.
Jennifer Salisbury (bib 1681) of Hialeah came through a packed stretch with her hair straight out behind her, running 37:35. And Felicia Johnson (bib 3098) of Homestead came by with her phone up and the biggest laugh of the morning on her face. She was out there for 1:10:17 and looked like she enjoyed every minute of it more than most people enjoy 25.
Breaking the Tape: A 19-Year-Old Won, and So Did a 12-Year-Old
Athan Figueroa (bib 5486) of Miami hit the tape first in 17:23, both hands up in peace signs, at a 5:35 pace. He’s 19, and he was the only person all morning to break 18 minutes.
Then came the frame we’ll be showing people for a long time. Autumn Sanchez (bib 5117) of Miami broke the women’s tape in 21:34 — 45th overall out of 4,068 — and she is 12 years old. Two of the three fastest women in a field of four thousand were middle schoolers. If you want one fact that sums up this race, it’s that one.
Right behind the leaders, Roger Rojas (bib 5356) of Miami came up the waterfront with his head back and his teeth gritted, running 19:13 for eighth overall and third in the men’s 30-34 group. And Alejandro Diaz-Bustamante (bib 2273), 16, of Miami closed out a 24:20 with the kind of blank, locked-in face you usually see on runners twice his age.
Side by Side: Almost Nobody Ran This One Alone
Once you notice it, you can’t stop noticing it. Look through our frames from the last mile and hardly anybody is by themselves.
Max Balsera (bib 4962), 19, and Mario Wood (bib 2290), 39, both of Miami, came down the waterfront matched stride for stride. Wood ran 24:06, fifth in the men’s 35-39 group; Balsera ran 24:49. Guilherme De Macedo (bib 4928) of Miami finished in 27:48, running the last stretch alongside a woman in a black Team FDC tank whose bib had rolled over in the wind. We couldn’t read it, so we’re not going to guess at her name — but that was a strong finish, whoever you are.
David Beltran (bib 5227) is 14. Lestelle Brautigam (bib 5205) is 45. They spent the last hundred meters flat-out sprinting each other to the line, both of them wincing, neither one giving an inch. Beltran got there in 26:24; Brautigam ran 27:37 and took seventh in the women’s 45-49 group.
And then our cover shot. Raphael Toll (bib 1437), 50, and Daniel Toll (bib 1436), 23 — consecutive bib numbers, because they signed up together — running the waterfront laughing at something one of them had just said. They finished two seconds apart, 29:29 and 29:31. Father and son, all the way in.
Same Last Name, Same Finish Line: The Family Race Inside the Race
We went through the results afterward, because we wanted to know if what we were seeing through the lens showed up in the data. It does.
714 last names appear two or more times in the 5K results, covering 2,766 finishers. More than two-thirds of the field shares a surname with somebody else who ran. And they didn’t just show up together — 616 runners crossed the line within five seconds of somebody with the same last name. Our favorite pair in the whole file never came past our camera: Jules Lari (bib 2694) and Jolie Lari (bib 2692), both 5 years old, both finishing in exactly 46:51.
We did catch this one, though. Ryan Piedrahita (bib 2937) is 8, in a Palm Springs North Road Runners Club shirt and orange mirrored shades, running dead level with his dad, Mario Piedrahita (bib 2936), 40, both of Hialeah. The timing system gave them the identical finish time: 30:25. Not close. Identical. Just behind them, Darien Martinez Blanco (bib 1989) of Miami came in throwing two thumbs up and a grin the size of the boulevard, on his way to 29:16.
And these are the two we’d hang on a wall. Francesco De Pieri (bib 1842) is 8 years old, arms loose, mouth open, hand still held by an adult just out of frame, hitting the finish mat in 41:11 — with Silvia Tricca (bib 1884), 51, laughing behind him in a knee brace, seven seconds back. Nobody in that photo is thinking about their time.
And then Gabriel Parra (bib 3960) of Weston, 13, coming down the last few feet of Biscayne Boulevard with his walker and a pair of sunglasses on, with Kyle Zreibe (bib 3970) of Miami bent over sideways beside him, pointing at him and hollering. Look at the results and you’ll see why we love this one: both men were given the same time, 26:40, and Kyle is scored one place behind Gabriel. He ran the whole last stretch with him and made sure Gabriel hit the mat first. That’s the race, right there.
The Student 1 Mile: Ninety-Four Kids and a Seven-Minute Winner
After the 5K cleared, the Student 1 Mile went off, and the volume went up.
Ninety-four kids ran it, ages 7 to 13, and 64 of them were under 10. There is nothing in sports photography quite like a mile run entirely by children who have collectively decided that pacing is for cowards. They go out at a dead sprint. All of them. Every year.
Diego Pol (bib 10215) of North Bay Village won it in 7:09, and he’s 10. Second was Lucas Tapasco (bib 10101) of Doral in 7:22 — he is 8 years old, running a 7:22 mile, which is quicker than most adults have ever covered one. Third went to Adrian Rama (bib 10203) of Miami, also 10, in 7:36.
The girls’ race was every bit as fast. Lee Hernandez (bib 10024) of Miami, 11, ran 7:47 and finished fourth overall in the entire field. Joaquina Quinteros (bib 10117) of Miami was second among the girls in 8:01 at 8 years old, and Helena Valente Rocha (bib 10249), also 8, took third in 8:54. An eight-year-old running eight minutes flat for a mile. We checked that twice.
What a Race for Schools Actually Looks Like
Here’s the part that doesn’t show up in a results file. Every dollar this event raises goes back to the participating schools and to district programs. So when 4,000 people turn up on a Saturday in March, that isn’t just a nice turnout — that’s funding. And the reason they turn up is that a kid brought a flyer home and talked the family into it.
You can see it in the crowd all morning. Whole rows of matching school shirts. Teachers running with their students. School tents on the grass afterward like a hundred small tailgates. It’s a road race wearing a pep rally’s clothes, and it works.
Why Miami Runners Trust Us With Race Day
Here’s what we’ve learned shooting races across Miami-Dade: the shirt ends up in a drawer and the medal ends up on a hook, but the photo is the thing that lasts. Especially at a race like this one. That frame of your ten-year-old crossing the mat with both arms up, or an 8-year-old matching his dad stride for stride, or an 81-year-old grandmother running 28 minutes — that gets printed, posted, and stuck to a refrigerator for the next decade.
So we treat every event like it matters, because it does. We get there before the gun, we stay until the last walker comes in, and we shoot the entire field — the 17-minute winner and the four-year-old who took 50. Then we turn galleries around fast, sorted by bib number, so a parent can find their kid in seconds instead of scrolling for half an hour. That’s a good experience for runners, and for race directors it’s marketing: those are the images that get shared, that sponsors notice, and that fill next year’s start line before registration even opens.
If you’re putting on a 5K, a fun run or a school event anywhere from downtown to Homestead and you want a Miami sports photographer who can handle a field of four thousand and still catch the small moments, we’d love to be your crew. And to every kid who ran this one — you made our morning. Find the complete set of race results at Southern Timing.
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