JP Morgan Corporate Challenge

So these are the final few days before I embark on my sixteen week training schedule to carry me over the finish line at the New York Marathon on Sunday 1 November. During the last couple of weeks I have been running less regularly but I can console myself that the runs I have done have been slightly longer and felt a bit more solid.

On Wednesday evening I took part in the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge for the first time. The Challenge is a 3.5 mile event for corporate runners which takes place in various locations around the world. Combined over two nights, the London Corporate Challenge drew 25,196 entrants from 623 companies. Investment bankers, lawyers and accountants were all warming up, sprinting around, doing one armed press ups and wearing matching Federera style team outfits whilst simultaneously barking into their mobile phones and furiously tapping out orders on their BlackBerries.

There were only about a dozen people in the Bell Pottinger team, most of whom i'd not met before. We all gathered in Battersea Park beforehand to get our race chips and team t-shirts and then together we made our way to the course. I couldn't believe the number of runners and it took more than 10 minutes to even cross the start line. Once we did it was fairly slow progress and there was a lot of weaving around walkers and groups of joggers who took up the whole width of the course. The Bell Pottinger team soon dispersed amongst the field. It had been raining earlier in the day but the evening had turned out to be warm and humid. The course looped round the avenue, up along the river, squiggled over the grass and finally finished in the central avenue. It was a bit of a crush to get out the other side with thousands of runners all clambering for their free water and t-shirt whilst munching down the complimentary bananas. Skins were piled high on the roadside.

It was a really lively atmosphere which continued on into the evening as people spilled out of the park and into the nearest pubs. Our team all went for celebratory beers at the Butcher & Grill and agreed that next year we'd all do it again. The following day the results went up on the website and I finished in a reasonable 32.29. I think that i'm in pretty good shape to start my training proper but for the next four months i'm going to have to get more organised if I want continue to have a social life AND run four times a week.