[MARATHON #231 / My 2nd Bela-Bela Marathon / 9 November 2019]
Global warming is starting to make its impression on town names: Warmbad, Afrikaans for “Hot Bath”, recently changed its name (and from liquid to gas) to Bela-Bela, which means Boiling-Boiling in Tswana.
South African runners are generally pretty resilient to heat but I remember passing the discarded bodies of melted runners lying at the side of the road when I previously ran the Bela-Bela Marathon in 2010. Burn out was recently recognised as an official syndrome by the World Health Organisation – and I expect there is an epidemic in Bela-Bela.
Bela-Bela is in the Waterberg region of Limpopo and rudimentary science tells you that combining heat and water results in heaps of humidity. The town is basically one big Bikram Yoga studio during the summer months. Continue reading “Bela-Bela Marathon (Boiling point in Limpopo)”