Cyril Sets The Pace

YOU’s Marelize Potgieter was among the throngs who joined the jubilant new president on a healthy walk in Cape Town

THE alarm goes off at 3.10 on a Wednesday morning. For a second I can’t remember why I have to get up so early but then it comes back to me: I have an all-important appointment with the president.

Cyril Ramaphosa himself took to Twitter recently to invite South Africans to join him on his walk from Khayelitsha to Mitchell’s Plain, adding the hilarious hashtag #tummymustfall.

And if the president can find the time to pound the pavements before getting down to the business of running the country, well, who am I to wimp out?

I down a cup of coffee in the car on the way to the meeting spot – Lookout Hill in Khayelitsha – and a small crowd has already gathered by the time I get there. It’s still pitch dark and a mean little autumn wind is blowing as we wait for the country’s No 1 citizen to arrive.

The president’s enjoyment of exercise is well documented. He was snapped in stripy Where’s Wally-like socks on a beachfront stroll in East London in January a few weeks after clinching the ANC presidency.

And last month, just before being elected SA’s new commander-in-chief, he and former finance minister Trevor Manuel were spotted running on the Sea Point promenade in Cape Town.

Selfies of joggers and walkers alongside a grinning Ramaphosa did the rounds on the internet – and soon afterwards the president announced he’d be doing a series of walks in the Mother City.

Join me, he urged. Let’s get healthy together. First he was in Gugulethu, today it’s the turn of Khayelitsha and Mitchell’s Plain.

And here I am, all set to sweat it out with Cyril.

People from across Cape Town have come out, including 11-year-old Frederick Parry of Durbanville, who’s here with his parents, Alan and Alsona, brother Mathys (10) and sister Gwyneth (6).