After a splendid breakfast at the Holiday Inn Brno, who kindly and most generously provided the Team's accommodation for the night, we headed under a overcast sky and light rain, to the main square where the previous day's programme had finished. There we all ran a short distance to the Governor's office. We were warmly greeted by the Governor Stanislav Juránek.

He loves to run himself and he had so wished to join us yesterday to run 30 kilometres, but unfortunately had to attend an official ceremony elsewhere. As he held the torch he commented that he hoped that the light of what the torch symbolised would spread throughout the building, making it a more harmonious place. Although it was raining he said that, "In Brno we always have beautiful weather, even when it rains the rain is beautiful".

Before beginning our numerous events in the city we briefly visited the Sri Chinmoy Peace tree in the nearby park where we had a team photograph.

The main event of the day happened in the square where we ran to with children from the nearby school.

The wet and cold weather did not dampen the throng of children from the numerous city schools who cheered the team on stage accompanied by trumpeters. The mayor of Brno, Roman Onderka kindly made space in his busy schedule to open the ceremony.

On stage we were joined by a local school choir from ZUS Kurim school of art who gave a wonderful rendition of the World Harmony Run song, sang also with singer Pavel Helan and the Team also joined in.

The audience were also entertained by majorettes led by Veronika Vaska and a musical performance by some boys on drums, keyboard and vocals. They were cheered on by their friends, and we thoroughly enjoyed their exuberance and energy. There were also performances by children from primary school Namesti 28 října.

We were very glad to be joined by a group of dissabled sportsmen and women. They participated with enthusiasm and endurace. Thank You! We truly admire them.

Great people!

The ceremony concluded by running out of the square with children from primary school Antoninska and through the city centre. Today we were to connect three schools as children from each school passed the torch on to the next school.

The World Harmony Run is not only linking peoples from different countries, but also about making links and connections within local communities. Schools are just one of the many prime examples that achieve these aims.

We ran to primary school Bakalovo which specialises in languages and therefore we were approriately greeted by two girls who gave a brief speech in English. After a brief refreshment break we headed to the next school, Videnska which is also a childrens home.

Children from this school then continued with us up a rather steep hill and on the way to our final Brno school Armenska we were joined by students from the secondary school.

We would like to thank so much Ales Kueera, an interviewer from Radio Petrov, who was the master of ceremony. When he met us for the first time he was so enthusiastic, cheerful and kind and kindly offered us help any time in the future. Thank you once again.

Just outside Namest nad Oslavou we were joined by two of our newest team members, Devashisu and Svetlana. Great Britian now numbers three boys - the most the British have had on the run in a long time. They wasted no time in running and chatting and even doing both at the same time. Who said men can't multitask? How large will Team GB get?

Joined by the local Czech runners, and joined by local children the Team ran into Namest, a town that the Run had visited in July 2006 (the mayor showed us the page where the runners had signed the town hall's guest book). We were ever so grateful for the mayor providing us with tasty baguettes.

At Trebic we were received by the mayor and as we ran off two teenager girls were inspired to take that first step which we so encourage and ran with the torch a few hundred metres.

It was only that they had to go home that they did not continue running with us to Prague!

The hills from Trebic to Bitovanky provided a challenging and exhilerating workout. Marjan from Slovenia just loves running up hills - he eats them up in no time and sets quite a pace. Only a few of us can keep up with him. It was even harder than ususal to keep up with him because of a strong head wind

At Zeletava we were met by the mayor of the town and the local children. They loved speaking to Devashisu who has such a great rapport with children.

I think they are able to instantly identify with his sense of joy and great British sense of humour.

With everyone smiling and in an exuberant mood the children raced out of the town, and joyfully continued with us for a few kilometres.

With the sun dipping down nearer to the horizon and the strong wind sweeping away the clouds our eventful day of running was coming to a close as we entered the historic city of Telc.

Surrounded by lakes and the dipping sun casting glorious shadows on this autumnal evening we finished our running.

Later in the evening the Team was given a tour of the city.

– Mark Collinson

Distance: 94 km

Team Members:
Salil Wilson (Australia), Dipavajan Renner (Austria), Ondrej Vesely (Czech Republic), Balavan Thomas (Great Britain), Marjan Jauk (Slovenia), Runar Pall Gigja (Iceland), Roos de Waart (Holland), Anita Borics (Hungary), Bogdan Copil (Romania), Jaroslaw Werner (Poland), Vladimir Salnicov (Moldova), Israel Cordeiro da Silva (Brazil), Aladin Tehrani (Iran), Devashisu Torpy (Great Britain), Svetlana (Russia)

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