Rain, and more on the way, they say

Running in the rain... Ruben and Willie on their way to Lephalale from Thabazimbi.

Today started off with a 5km walk for everyone, together with the mayor and officials from Thabazimbi. The cloud cover had increased, and further on where faithful workhorses Ruben Ramolefe and Willie Mtolo were grinding away the kilometers towards Lephalale, it had started to drizzle. Not that the rain put the two off, they were seen chatting amiably among themselves, greeting passing locals and generally just taking the 28 kilometers they completed in about three hours in their stride.

Most Heroes didn’t do any running and walking, since they’re ahead of schedule. Only forty kilometers were completed, with the day’s walk ending in Lephalale town.

Along the beautiful, meandering route of lush, green bushveld locals were curiously watching the runners pass.

Where are they from?
Pretoria.
And where are they running to?
Thohoyandou.
Hau!

The disbelief was clear.

The weather seemed to put a damper on activities during the rest of the day. During their march through Lephalale, the Sport Heroes handed out condoms in the streets and at the local taxi rank, but found it to be almost deserted. ‘Normally these places are teeming with people’, several of them commented, ‘but there’s almost nobody in sight here. Where’s everyone?

Later at the coaching clinics held at well grassed, neat stadium it was only a small group of children who gathered to take lessons from the Heroes. The proceedings were quite informal, and was more of a relaxing activity session than coaching clinic.

SRSA handed its equipment allocation to a number of schools who were represented at the venue. Even though the value of the equipment exceeds R20 000, it was clear that it was a drop in the ocean when one takes the total needs into consideration.

So for the Heroes and their support teams it was a fairly early finish to the day, with everyone leaving by 4pm.

Tomorrow will see the Heroes back to their quota of about 80-100km per day, that will take them to the small village of Marken. There’s more rain on the way, they say, so the inevitable northern Limpopo heat is avoided for another day.