Photos by REDintern Farhanah Ghaffar and Ng Cheng Cong.

Sundown Marathon 2009

Marathon runners trotting along the path in the dead of the night. (Photo 1 © Farhanah Ghaffar/Red Sports)

Singapore, Sunday, June 1, 2009 – The adidas Sundown Marathon, Asia’s only mass night running event, saw Benny Goh take his first ultramarathon title, while Jeanette Wang made it a double for Singapore with her second consecutive win.

There were a total of 10,670 entrants. The 680 ultramarathon entrants and 156 ultramarathon finishers were both new Sundown records. 

This year's route took runners through the scenic routes of the Eastern Coastal Park Connector Network (PCN), developed by the National Parks Board on the eastern side of the island.

The 42km long Eastern Coastal PCN links up popular beach parks of East Coast, Changi Beach and Pasir Ris. It also connects to other parks in the eastern parts of Singapore such as Bedok Reservoir Park, Bedok Town Park and Sun Plaza Park. Ultramarathoners had to run the course twice.

Moroccan Ahmida Lamchanmak was the winner in the marathon category on his Sundown debut, while Briton Lisa Jones also clinched the women’s Marathon title in her first attempt.

Benny Goh shaved last years winning time of 7 hours 37 minutes and 15 seconds by finishing in a time of 7:36:05.

Jeannette Wang successfully defended her woman’s title with a time of 8:47:36, 27min better than her 2008 mark of 9:14:36.

In the fiercely competitive marathon, Lamchanmak crossed the finish line in 2:43:06 and Jones clinched the women’s title in a time of 3:48:27. For both athletes, this was their first running outing in Singapore.

The categories in this year’s event included the 84km Ultramarathon, the 42km Marathon, the newly introduced Women 10km, Team Challenge and Corporate Challenge. The latter two categories had teams of four participants running 10km each.