Heroes on the Run: Angela Wint
For every virtual race in 2020, NYRR is highlighting frontline and essential workers in our Heroes on the Run series. Running is a source of strength, especially over these last several months, and we are grateful for the everyday heroes who keep our community safe and healthy. These are the people that keep us running—sometimes while running themselves. These runners inspire us with their courage, commitment, and selflessness and it is our privilege to recognize them.
This week with the Virtual NYRR Ted Corbitt 15K, we honor Angela Wint, a medical assistant in the pediatric cardiology unit at New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, as our Hero on the Run.
In 2017, Angela was the last runner across the finish line of the TCS New York City Marathon. That moment, pictured above, happened two years after she joined Black Girls Run, an organization that provides a community for all women to be active and healthy. After volunteering at the marathon in 2018 and 2019, Angela hoped for a comeback this year. Then, of course, the pandemic hit.
Angela said the start of the pandemic made it feel, “… like my career and life were being flipped upside down.” Much of her day-to-day role centers on working to make special accommodations and set up transportation for her patients so they don’t have to take public transportation or be stressed about coming to the hospital.
Previously, Angela spent a lot of personal time with patients and their loved ones. This intimate time helped both she and her patients feel connected. “The pandemic has taken all of that away from us," she said. "Everything I want to do to help alleviate my patients' anxiety and discomfort has been taken away. With all of my PPE on, the patients can't even see my smile. I can't hug a parent when they are worried about their child. It's so hard.”
This heartbreaking time has given running a new meaning for Angela. "Running has become [an] escape for me," she said. "It was always more than physical exercise. Putting on my running shoes and just letting loose and going outside—it's freeing, especially in the city.”
Running is the one thing that she’s felt she has control over and that keeps her level headed. “Every day, I am feeling the effects of the pandemic as a frontline worker. You come in to uncertainty. You leave in uncertainty," she said. "I didn't want my patients to see how deeply it was affecting me. I needed to maintain my bright light. And the only way to do that was to lace up, put on my headphones, and get outside.”
Angela ran the Virtual TCS New York City Marathon on November 1 with two other members of Black Girls Run, her friends Maria and Ethel K. Wilson-Diallo. They met up at 4:30 a.m. to run on a course they'd mapped out to cover Brooklyn, beginning near Crown Heights, going through Prospect Park, and finishing at Gateway Mall in East New York. She's pictured above en route.
Completing her second marathon meant a lot to Angela. “It didn't matter if I finished first or last. It didn't matter if it took me six hours or 10 hours," she said. "It just mattered that I did it. After this year, I needed this for myself. For my patients. For my coworkers and all of the frontline workers like me.”
Follow #HeroesOnTheRun to join us in celebrating Angela and all of our everyday heroes.