Family swimming action Weekend of 26-7 February 2000 And running 5 March 2000

Mid-February saw running action as Colleen and Mish did their first organised run (only 5 km! but no digital pix, we will have to wait for emulsion film to get developed); the last weekend in February we switched to swimming, then back to running on 5 March.

Swimming, 26 February: Dolphins Gala

On Saturday Shingi did some short and fast swimming in a club gala, and came back with four bronze medals, one for each stroke. Part of the rainbow, which was right around the sun, is shown below.

In this one, a prominent SA swimmer presents the medals.

Swimming, 27 February: 1 km Makhulu Swim

On Sunday morning, we all went about 30 km north from home and swam the 1 kilometre Makhulu Swim in a dam near Midrand. The finisher's medal is shown at top right of this page.

Colleen swam first in the women's race (under 14 and over 30s) - you can see from the start sequence that things get pretty hectic:

We were all proud to see Colleen swim strongly and come in 68th with a time of 30 minutes and 23 seconds. Here she is about 20 metres from the end and as she crosses the finish line:

Then it was the turn of the boys - Shingi raced away and came in at 22 min 40 sec, with Temba (accompanied by Mish) swimming strongly to make it in 34:55.

	Mish and Temba nearing the finish line
	Shingi just after the race (where he beat the previous short-course gala silver medallist by a minute or so)
	Mish and an exhausted but successful Temba as they emerge from the finishers' pen.
	The team in their Makhulu Swim T-shirts and medals after the race.

Running 5 March

Mish did his first ever 15 km run in a parallel event with the Township Marathon starting in Eldorado Park. It was great being back in the townships after spending so much time in the Zimbabwean townships in the 80s; the route took us through the relatively well off parts of Eldorado Park as well as some dirt tracks through a squatter camp (and up a steep hill!) - lots of community projects, maize growing in every spare square metre, people all along the route encouraging us, cracking friendly jokes and generally making the rainbow group of runners feel at home.

For the runners: Mish just managed his target of 6 minutes a kilometre, coming in at 1:29:24. Easy to call it a PB when you have never done the distance before! Here are some pictures:

	Crossing the finish line, coming up through completely sodden grass and mud after the heavy rains of the past weeks (and a huge storm the night before).
	Finished the race, got the T-shirt and the medal. So is he proud, or what??!! Tired, certainly...