What an amazing night.  165 runners hit the road in Shenzhen’s 4th Annual Midnight Charity Race – a charity event supporting the work of Captivating International.  This event, founded and organized by Greg Schultheis, has grown year on year to now become an event being locked into everyone’s annual November calendar.  The 5 and 10km midnight race is forming an amazing history.  It all started in 2009 when 13 guys and girls got together with the aim of running 10km in less than an hour – starting at 11pm with the aim of finishing before midnight and raising money for UNICEF.  Word spread about the event and doing something at midnight.  In 2010, the event morphed into a fund-raiser supporting the work of Captivating International with 50 runners joining the challenge raising RMB60k for the charity.  2011 – 125 runners, and RMB113k.

But the past Saturday night saw ALL records broken.  A record 165 runners and 11 corporate sponsors, and over RMB130k raised for charity.  Running times were also smashed.  The fastest man for 10kms, Daan Ooievaar, taking just over 40:15.98 minutes, with the fastest woman Alena Bednarova taking just 45:09.02 minutes.  The first placed 5km man was Arlo Kipfer with a time of 23:14.90; with the first placed 5km woman Lynn Lee taking just 24:28.06 minutes.  Special for the whole night was also having over 20 of the older children from one of Captivating Internationals programs competing in the event this year.  They had a real blast and are pictured above.

Captivating International wants to give special thanks to Greg and his team.  Amazing events like this take lots of planning and this event simply gets bigger and better each year.  Also, to all the runners and corporate sponsors, your support makes it possible for good work to continue to grow and become great work, and for our Shenzhen running community to form special bonds.  Corporate sponsors – you have been amazing.  These sponsors have given generously to support an event that really does not bring them much publicity – it shows real heart-giving.  Thank you so much to all of you listed below:

PCH International
Rapscallions Cafe Bar
Kaoyo
United Foodservice Group
Gait International
OEC Group
Chang Hong Furniture
Amrosia Global Sourcing and Inspection
Barefoot Beach Bar
Oneal by Kai Yuan
Sino Celtic

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