This has been the case for do-gooder and 1st team rugby coach for Pirates Club, Shaun Raaff.
Raaff and friends took the challenge of heading to Cape Town on-foot and managed to raise R250 000 for charity while at it.
“The idea for the run was planted after I listened to a talk from motivational speaker Braam Melherbe, who ran the Great Wall of China for charity,” said Raaff.
Feeling it was time to “make a difference”, Raaff and 11 of his non-running friends decided that they would embark on a relay from Johannesburg to Cape Town in seven days for charity.
With education being something that the whole group felt very strongly about, MAD Charity became their purpose.
MAD Charity identifies academically talented South African pupils from less fortunate backgrounds and supports their education and life skills development until they are ready to enter the job market.
“MAD Charity was the link to education that we required and so began MAD2Run,” said Raaff.
Each day the group took turns to run parts of the route.
“The point of the run was that it would take us seven days to reach the Two Oceans Marathon in Cape Town, and as average athletes who did not run for a living, the relay was the only possible way we could achieve this,” he added.
“However, this still meant everyone would run almost the same distance a person participating in a marathon runs each day.”
Before heading to Cape Town the group created a Facebook page encouraging people to track their progress.
“The reaction from people around us was awesome as we got just over 3000 followers. I guess, people enjoy and support other people who are willing to put themselves out there for charity,” said Raaff.
The group’s goal was to raise one million rand, but they managed to raise a quarter of this.
“We are really chuffed that we even got up to a quarter of a million – it was a really difficult task,” he added.
“This was the first MAD2Run, however we are looking into different challenges moving forward. This is not the last people will see of the MAD2 bunch.”
