Frequently Asked Questions about MURA and Ultra Marathon races
You will find below some of the questions we are asked about MURA and the practice of ultra running:
Why do MURA members have to pay membership fees, whereas the other running groups do not have to ?
MURA funding comes from the membership fees MURA members pay when joining the association. In addition to this, MURA is working at finding additional funding through organizing events where non MURA members pay a small fee, via third parties such as sponsors, official bodies, … This is the reason why MURA members have to pay a membership fee similar to joining any other formal associations or NGOs.
Other running groups are usually focused only at organizing training for their members or sharing information about running. As such they have a different mission than the one from MURA. They also rely on their members to pay some fees although not when becoming members but when for example they order their annual group T-shirt or annual dinner. As for MURA, we have issued the member T-shirt and membership card to the members without charging them additional fee.
What benefits do MURA members get by joining MURA?
MURA members are enjoying the following benefits:
- Free MURA member T-Shirt
- MURA membership card allowing free access to MURA events
- Discounts at selected partners outlets
- Free attendance to MURA monthly LSD sessions (fee for non members)
- Free attendance to MURA Forum speaking events (fee for non members)
- Free attendance or discounted fee to MURA ultra-running clinics/bootcamps
- Discount at registration for participating ultra-marathon races in Malaysia
- Social media platform for sharing about ultra running (in Malaysia and beyond)
In addition to this, our ordinary members are getting the following additional benefits compared to associate members:
- Some free slots for oversea participating ultra-marathons with sometimes free entries, transportation or accommodation (depending on races)
- Some free slots for participating ultra-marathon races in Malaysia
Once an associate member has successfully completed an ultra-marathon, his membership status is automatically upgraded to ordinary membership with all the associated benefits. Members have to notify the MURA committee and provide their race results/certificate.
MURA is working over time at bringing more benefits to its members.
What is the difference between MURA and other running communities ?
MURA is an association registered under Registry of Societies (ROS) with the goals to help develop the ultra running practice in Malaysia, support its members and bring more people to ultra running over time. MURA aims to be the official body working with the relevant national and international bodies to promote and sustain ultra running practice in Malaysia. Other running communities are usually providing a way for runners to meet each other around running activities. They usually use a Facebook group that shares information about their activities and organise the meet ups. Often they have no official structure unless they are affiliated as clubs (like Pacesetters for example, …). Therefore, MURA is a body very much focused on developing the ultra-running practices in Malaysia.
Why do non-members have to pay for attending MURA activities?
MURA organises events such as forums, LSD and clinics. All these events are providing beverages (water, 100+, …) for the attendees along with the value of the event itself (knowledge sharing, organization of LSD, coaching, …). As such this takes time and money to organize. MURA is providing this for free to its members, however non members pay a small fee (5RM to 10RM usually) to contribute towards the event organization cost.
How can I or any member becomes a Committee Member?
Anyone can become a Committee Member provided you are a member of MURA with a valid membership and subject to the rules of the association. All Committee members are to be elected at the Annual General Meeting (AGM). The committee meets at least once a month to discuss current projects, actions to follow up, direction of the association and other relevant issues.
Anyone can also join the Committee as a contributing member to help organise specific projects. For example, we have contributing members helping MURA in our social media activities, water stations project, … We actually encourage all members to be active and contribute to the association. The contributing members have no voting right when invited to attend the committee meetings.
What is the admission criteria to become a MURA member?
The criteria to become a MURA members are the following:
- Be a Malaysian citizen or a Malaysian resident who is residing legally in Malaysia;
- Have completed an ultra race of 50 k or above in the year of admission as member. Each ultra race will be valid for 2 years to maintain the membership status (ordinary membership); OR
- Have completed a full marathon (42.195km) race in the year of admission as member (associate membership);
- Pay the membership fee
In addition to this, MURA members will have to have run at least one ultra race of 50k or above within the two years of the current membership in order to be able to renew it after paying the new membership fee.
Is MURA a Klang Valley-based organization, and members from other parts of Malaysia can’t really attend its activities?
Actually, MURA is a nationwide organization. MURA has members in many of the states in Malaysia. However it is true that a big number of our members are in Klang valley. We do have significant numbers of members in South (around Johor Bahru) and North (around Penang). In other part of West Malaysia and East Malaysia, we have a small number of members. MURA activities are organized mostly in the Klang Valley, North and South of Malaysia.
Does MURA organize any running races? If not, why not?
MURA does not organise any races. In fact, organizing races is not in MURA goals at all. MURA is an association aimed at developing and supporting the ultra running race and practices in Malaysia. As such, Race Directors and their organizations are best placed to organize races. MURA can act in two ways with regards to races:
- when requested by Race Directors, as an advisor to help assess and improve the quality of races
- as a body supporting ultra runners for example, by setting up a MURA water station on races where the Race Directors allow it
How does MURA help define and improve the standard of quality of ultra races in Malaysia ?
MURA is having its own members and committee members running Ultra races in Malaysia and oversea. Whenever one of them completes a race, they will share their race report, their evaluation of the races (pro/cons, strength/weak points) to try to assess what can be improved. This information is shared with the Race Director (RD) of the race. MURA is not sharing the evaluation of the race publicly but works with the RD to assess and propose improvements for future races.
The race reports are however public and shared with our members. We actually encourage all our members to share their race reports, which MURA is happy to relay to the wider community.
How do ultra marathon races in Malaysia fare with oversea races ?
It’s actually difficult to compare such races because ultra running oversea has been practiced for many years and a lot of the famous oversea races are well established for years. As such they’ve improved over time and reach a fairly high level of maturity. They also follow strict guidelines defined by some national or more global official bodies (ITRA, …). Malaysia on the other hand has just started discovering ultra-running in the last 3 years, first as something very niche and in the last 2 years as something more established. Malaysia races are progressing well toward global standards as they have benefited from the experience of other countries, yet a lot needs to be done, in particularly in establishing those races oversea. There are however exceptions and for example some East Malaysia races like TMBT are now well recognised in the asian ultra running community.
