WeBeThirsty Running the Culture of Kuala Lumpur Since 2016

There is a particular Tuesday ritual at WeBeThirsty that says everything about what this crew is built on. At 8:30 in the evening, a loose gathering of runners, designers, musicians, and creatives assembles at Desa Park City in Kuala Lumpur. They are not there simply to clock kilometres. They are there because two brothers had an idea back in January 2016 that running could hold more than fitness. It could hold a culture. It could hold a whole city together, one stride at a time.

Two Brothers, One Shared Thirst

WeBeThirsty was founded by brothers Bryzoid and Ethan, who looked at the Kuala Lumpur running scene and saw an opening. Not for another training group, but for something with a distinct creative identity. Their founding idea was direct: build a platform that pulls people from different industries, different backgrounds, and different disciplines into a shared commitment to running. The name they chose captures the spirit exactly. Thirsty for miles, thirsty for goals. It is a mantra that has stayed with the crew since the beginning and continues to shape how every run is approached. Bryzoid and Ethan did not want a crew that simply showed up and went home. They wanted one that cultivated something, a genuine running lifestyle rooted in the local scene, shaped by the city around it, and energised by the people who give it life. What started as a shared vision between two brothers has grown into a community of around twenty-five runners, each bringing something different to the group while moving together toward the same finish line.

Fashion, Art, Music and the Open Road

Few running crews in Southeast Asia have been as deliberate about the intersection of running and creative culture as WeBeThirsty. From the beginning, the founders made clear that the sport did not have to exist in isolation from the rest of life. Fashion, art, music, graphics, and illustration have all found their way into how the crew presents itself and what it stands for. This is not a decorative choice. It reflects something genuine about who shows up on Tuesday evenings at Desa Park City. The membership is drawn from across Kuala Lumpur's creative industries, and that diversity of perspective gives the group a texture that purely athletics-focused crews rarely achieve. Running, for WeBeThirsty, is the framework. Culture is what fills it in. The crew's visual identity, the way it communicates and carries itself on and off the road, has always been shaped by people who think in images and sounds as much as they think in pace and distance. The result is a crew that feels alive in a specific way, one that you recognise as much by its sensibility as by its speed.

The Captains Who Keep It Moving

A crew of around twenty-five runners does not hold together without people willing to carry the weight of organising and leading. WeBeThirsty is guided by a group of captains who have each played a role in shaping the crew's direction over the years. Yeoh Wai serves as one of those captains, alongside Paco, Ethan, Yeoh Tunway, Bryan, and Bryzoid, who carries both the founder and captain role within the group. The presence of multiple captains is not incidental. It means that no single person bears the full responsibility of keeping the crew engaged and motivated, and it reflects the collaborative spirit that the founders instilled from the start. Leadership in WeBeThirsty looks less like hierarchy and more like a shared obligation to the community. The captains are not set apart from the group. They are the ones showing up early, running with everyone else, and making sure the culture they have built continues to feel worth returning to week after week.

Tuesday Evenings at Desa Park City

Desa Park City is one of Kuala Lumpur's most thoughtfully designed residential and recreational areas, and it makes for an ideal home base for a crew like WeBeThirsty. The neighbourhood offers a network of tree-lined roads, a well-kept lake park, and a calm atmosphere that is a genuine contrast to the density and pace of the city centre. Every Tuesday at 8:30 pm, this is where the crew meets. The evening timing is practical for Kuala Lumpur, where the daytime heat makes outdoor running a serious undertaking for much of the year. By the time the sun goes down and the temperatures ease, the park comes alive with runners, and WeBeThirsty is a consistent and recognisable presence among them. The weekly run is the heartbeat of the crew, the fixed point around which everything else in the community organises itself. It is the moment when the creative philosophy and the social bonds that WeBeThirsty talks about actually materialise in physical space, in shared effort, in conversation before and after the run, in the small rituals that accumulate into something meaningful over months and years.

Running Through Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur is a city that rewards runners willing to explore it on foot. The hilly terrain, the pockets of preserved greenery, and the dramatic skyline that emerges unexpectedly around corners make it a genuinely compelling place to run. The KLCC Park, nestled at the base of the Petronas Twin Towers, offers a groomed and popular loop that manages to feel both urban and calm. The Perdana Botanical Garden, one of the city's largest public parks, draws runners who want more shade and a slower, more varied landscape. For those drawn to trail running, the Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve is remarkable for its existence within the city limits at all. One of the last remaining patches of tropical rainforest inside a major Southeast Asian city, it offers shaded trails and a level of natural intensity that is genuinely rare. Kuala Lumpur also has a well-established race calendar that gives the running community regular focal points throughout the year. The Standard Chartered Kuala Lumpur Marathon is the flagship event, drawing participants from across the region and the world for categories ranging from five kilometres to the full marathon distance. The route threads through the heart of the city, passing landmarks that anyone who has spent time in Kuala Lumpur will recognise instantly. For those seeking a different kind of challenge entirely, the KL Tower International Towerthon sees runners tackle 2,058 steps to the summit of one of the tallest freestanding towers in the world, a test of leg strength and mental resolve that has attracted elite athletes and enthusiastic amateurs in equal measure.

A Connected Running Scene

WeBeThirsty exists within a broader Kuala Lumpur running community that has developed real depth over the past decade. Several crews share the city and, in various ways, share the same belief that running is most meaningful when it is done with others. Brooks Running Squad, established in 2014, has built an inclusive environment for runners across a wide range of ages and fitness levels. Brand New Waves Run Club, founded in 2019, draws a parallel between active lifestyles and creative culture in a way that resonates with what WeBeThirsty has always championed. Run89, also formed in 2016, has cultivated a loyal following through its emphasis on camaraderie over competition. Kyserun Krew, founded in 2015, has long prioritised inclusivity as its defining value. Together, these crews make Kuala Lumpur a genuinely active and connected city for runners, one where showing up to a group run means joining something that has been carefully and consistently built over years of real effort and real community investment.

What Keeps Them Coming Back

Nine years after Bryzoid and Ethan first brought their idea to life, WeBeThirsty continues to meet every Tuesday evening. That consistency is worth noting, because it is not automatic. Keeping a crew alive and engaged over nearly a decade requires more than a good founding philosophy. It requires people who continue to find meaning in the weekly ritual, who bring others into it, and who are willing to show up even when the energy might be low or the weather uncooperative. The crew has stayed relatively focused in size, at around twenty-five members, which keeps the group tight enough to feel personal. There is no anonymity in a crew of this scale. People know each other's names, goals, and histories. The runs at Desa Park City are not just exercise sessions. They are the kind of regular, reliable gathering that builds the sort of friendships that hold across years. For anyone drawn to the idea of running with a crew that takes both its sport and its culture seriously, that meets consistently, and that has spent nearly a decade proving it means what it says, WeBeThirsty is exactly what the name suggests. Thirsty for miles. Thirsty for goals. And reliably there, every Tuesday at 8:30 pm, ready to run.