These 7 Inspiring Malaysian Runners Are All The Motivation You Need Today

Cheng Zhee Long was born with cerebral palsy. Despite his disability and short life expectancy, this Malaysian completed the 2012 Soochow International Ultramarathon in Taiwan, becoming the first person with cerebral palsy to compete. The 24-hour ultramarathon is over 75km long!

Cheng was awarded “Best Inspirational Award in Malaysian Motivational Talk Competition” and “Top 10 Malaysian Motivational Speaker.” He also holds many world marathon records such as Asia’s Cerebral Palsy Marathon runner record in the Adidas Sundown Marathon.

Outside of his day job as Programme Manager, Alex Au-Yong is known as the XtraMiler for always going the extra mile in everything he does. An avid marathon runner, Au-Yong completed two 100km ultramarathons and raised over RM100,000 for charity.

Lee Swee Luan owns a restaurant in Penang, specialising in fish head curry, mutton curry, and claypot prawns. At the age of 60 she took up running, within three years she ran her first half-marathon, and two years later completed a full marathon.

Now 69 years old, Lee has completed 8 marathons and has no intentions of stopping!

Known as the 'citizen runner,' Edan Syah became the fastest and youngest Malaysian to run the Boston Marathon in 2015. The self-coached athlete continued to work a full-time job while training on his own and shocked everyone when he won a high profile 10km marathon in KL in 2011.

After 8 years and 9 marathons, Edan was named fastest marathon runner in Malaysia in 2016.

In 2016, Red Ribbon youth icon Jeff Lau walked across the Sahara desert for the Malaysian AIDS Foundation. His goal was to spread awareness about HIV education.

Lau was the only Malaysian at the 2016 Marathon Des Sables, a 257km ultramarathon across the Southern Moroccan Sahara desert. He brought along an official Malaysian AIDS Foundation teddy bear to act as a conversation starter with the other runners.

Earlier this year, over 10,000 people ran alongside hundreds of kids with disabilities at the Borneo International Marathon. The special 3km route was set up for children with and without disabilities to participate together with family and friends, to promote an inclusive society for all.

Nasir Abas, a 61-year-old man from Kuala Kedah, completed a 500km run from Zahir Mosque in Alor Setar to Dataran Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur last year. Nasir retired from the military in 1998 after serving for 21 years. His completed his run over the course of 10 days.

Nasir's aim was to inspire the younger generation and bring out their spirit of patriotism for Merdeka.

Now in its 3rd consecutive year, AXA Hearts In Action Run 2017 aims to make contributions to four NGOs - WWF Malaysia, National Council of Women's Organisations (NCWO), National Kidney Foundation (NKF), and World Vision Malaysia (WVM).

By joining, not only will you get to enjoy a fun and healthy day out with family and friends, you'll also be making a real difference in the areas of environment, animals, health, women and children. Plus, you get to choose from 5 vibrant and colorful BROOKS Dri-fit running T-shirts! :)

Take note of the details below:
Date: Sunday, 24 September 2017
Time: 6am
Venue: MAEPS, Serdang
Categories: 6km (Adults – RM55; Children Age 3-12 – RM35); 12km (RM65)

Click here to register now!