FOR the first time, the Allianz Pacesetters 4x3km relay race was held at the Padang Merbok recently.
The event received great support from the public as well as corporate teams who gathered at the venue as early as 7am.
A total of 250 teams consisting of four relay runners each, joined the run.
Every runner in a team ran three kilometres per loop, passing the baton to the next person in line.
As the race ended, many participants visited the Allianz booth which featured interesting health-related activities.
Participants checked their BMI readings and challenged themselves by completing a certain distance on the odometer attached to a bicycle to win a prize.
The top five teams in each category won a trophy each.
The run featured five categories — Men’s Open, Women’s Open, Under-26 Men (Universities, Colleges and Schools), Under-26 Women (Universities, Colleges and Schools) and Kiwanis Corporate Charity Challenge.
To take part in the Allianz Pacesetters 4x3km, corporate organisations made a minimum donation of RM1,000 to Kiwanis Down Syndrome Foundation — National Centre.
A total of RM50,000 was raised from the race for the centre.
Pacesetters Athletics Club, the biggest running club in Malaysia, and Allianz Malaysia signed a sponsorship agreement at the Kiwanis Down Syndrome Foundation — National Centre in Petaling Jaya in October.
“At Allianz, we want to promote a healthy lifestyle for everyone as we believe that healthy living is more important than anything else,” said Allianz Malaysia Bhd CEO Zakri Khir.
“Running is the easiest form of exercise which we believe everyone can start doing. Besides, we also want to give back to society through charitable causes.
“Thus, our journey with Pacesetters began about two months ago.”
Allianz Malaysia sponsored five teams of employees to participate in categories A and B and one team for the Kiwanis Corporate Charity Challenge.
Allianz has also been organising a series of fun runs through Allianz Pacer. The concept of a fun run is to encourage the habit of running by making it fun.
Fun runs provide Allianz Pacer followers an opportunity to run at interesting and unique venues, which in turn also inculcates interest among new runners to run more frequently.
So far, Allianz Malaysia has organised three fun runs which were not competitive in nature.
This is the very first time Allianz Pacer is taking part in a competitive fun run.
To promote a healthy lifestyle through running, Allianz initiated a running community programme known as the Allianz Pacer Running Community in October last year. The Allianz Pacer is a social running community built on social media tools to encourage more people to start running for a healthier lifestyle.
Those who are interested in Allianz Pacer’s running initiatives can visit www.facebook.com/AllianzPacer.
Click ‘Like’ to find out more and be part of this community and join in for more fun and healthy events to come.