Big Things Come in Small Packages.
As Malaysia gets into the era of health and fitness, running just seems to be booming wider and wider. What makes running such a beautiful sport? Well, the fact that running has no age limit and all you need is a good pair of shoes. A runner’s natural instinct is to go further and move faster while their eyes are set on the finishing line. So really, running doesn’t discriminate you of your weight and of your height. The sheer determination to keep running the distance and the need for speed make you a runner, regardless of your experience.
Running For Weight Loss
For Petaling Jaya-born Adele Wong Li-Peng, the life of being a runner is one that she never saw coming. Coming from a family of non-athletes, she never found the love and passion for running up till high school. However, the middle child found herself drawn to sports like rock climbing, ping pong and basketball. Running crept itself into her life as she stepped into college. Like most teenagers living in the college environment, health and fitness became a necessity to fitting into the crowd. The then-nineteen college freshman picked up running to lose weight—running four times a week, 30 minutes every session, and mostly in the evening.
Adele was a part-time student in Monash University who took a degree in Medical Bio-science, and worked herself up academically till she was nominated as one of the top graduates of her year. Since graduation, the brainy student has been working part-time as a freelance personal trainer, guiding and assisting anyone who requires help. The March baby has proven to be more than a mere jock—to the likes of being a Malaysian female Jeremy Lin.
Debut and Progress
Over the time she ran to lose weight, taking notice of how much her love for running grew since then, that she just couldn’t stop from improving herself further. Her debut run was a 7km run at the Putrajaya Night Run 2010 where she came in the Top 20. The impressive performance by the amateur runner started the journey of taking running to the next stage. In November 2013, the shy introvert joined the PUMA Running Club with the attention-grabbing giveaway of free socks upon registration. As funny as that may sound, that first step to joining the club was going to unlock another window of opportunity for her.
As she started running with the PUMA Running Club, Adele’s form and performance started attracting attention from PUMA’s official athletes. She was soon invited to participate in PUMA’s Saturday activity runs with the Cari Runners Group and their pacemakers that led to making her a runner sponsored by PUMA came January 2014. Her performance continued to impress and that earned her a spot as an official PUMA athlete by the end of that year.
