JPMorgan Chase Corp Challenge

(Catching up on some old posts...)

JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge - Boston, MA

Thursday, June 2^nd, 2011  --  7:15pm  --  3.5 mile road race

An annual tradition of running this race: a 3.5 mile weeknight jaunt through Back Bay (steps away from home). Proceeds from the race benefit a local charity such as Camp Harbor View, a camp in the Boston Harbor geared towards inner city youth. Every year I organize my corporate team’s participation in this race. In the past, I’ve had up to 35 runners – but this was our smallest team yet, only 6 runners since the race filled to capacity before many of my colleagues had a chance to register. The prior day saw catastrophic tornados in Massachusetts. The day of the run was dark and overcast – quite ominous actually in the afternoon, even raining briefly but magically cleared up just before race time – an evening run at 7:15pm.

Team shot pre-race

With a total of 12,000 runners and three turns within the first half-mile of the race – you can imagine the clogged start! Not to mention the many people who seeded themselves too close to the front so that many of us have to endure a weaving obstacle course for the first mile or so. It’s always the case with this run, I’ve learned to accept it. In the end I had a good run and was satisfied with my time (given my recent lack of training). Here are my approximate mile splits, good solid even pacing once I got past that first mile and the road opened up a bit.

Mile 1.0 : 7:39 (slow due to turns and weaving through other runners)
Mile 2.0 : 6:51
Mile 3.0 : 6:50
Mile 3.5 : 3:26 (last half mile at 6:52 pace)

Finish: 24:46 (3.5 mile run, 7:05/mi pace overall)

As usual our group hit SilverTone for post-race beverages.