As I write this (retrospectively), it’s the beginning of the final day of the Run2Stop Challenge. We’ve travelled almost 600 kilometres, and in that time we’ve busted knees, come close to cutting off fingers, harpooned rocks with steel rods, built jungle gyms from scratch, and suffered heat-induced delirium. But we’ve also found out a few things about ourselves that we didn’t know, made the coming year just a little bit better for South African kids who didn’t ask to be born into the circumstances that they find themselves in, and forged more than a few genuine friendships.

I’m sad that this is the last day.

Having left Cullinan (which should really be more famous for Jacaranda trees than diamonds) for Atteridgeville in the morning, the challenge for day four was to paint 85 metres of concrete fencing for a children’s home in Atteridgeville, Pretoria. It was hot. It was painty. And we lost, by mere seconds. Having tasted defeat for the first time, it was important for us to remain gracious, and not to remind Team Edge that on the challenge front, the score remained 4-1 to us.

The loss at the challenge heightened tensions, somewhat. Having failed to secure a point for our team, we were reliant on either the cyclists or the runners picking up a point in order to keep us in the contest for the final day. Our cyclists lost. Our runners… won.

Right now it’s 8-5 in favour of Team Edge. There are three points up for grabs today. It’s the beginning of day five, and it’s time to give them hell.

All pics by Tyson Jopson.

CLICK HERE to check out the team and route info.