My First Race: Chase Corporate Challenge

I've been a jogger/runner for many years now, going back to my college years in the early 1990s. I do it mostly for exercise, and also because I find it pleasureable and a good way to clear my head -- and sometimes do some really good thinking. In fact, I find that some of my best ideas arise while running. From April - November I try to run 3-4 miles, several times a week. It is always weather and schedule dependent. I think the longest I have ever run is 6 or 8 miles, many years ago.

I had never been in an official race, until last night when I participated in the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge, a 3.5 mile charity race here in Rochester, NY. Several people from work were a part of it, even though we didn't have an official company team with a tent, etc. It was a hot and humid night, but overall I'm glad I participated, and I plan to do so again next year.

It was a very interesting experience, not least because of the huge number of people involved. There were over 10,000 people crammed onto the RIT campus (apparently a record for this event in Rochester). With so many people lined up and involved in the race, the first 5 minutes or so was stop-and-go traffic at best: standing, walking a bit, standing, and so on. And all but the very fastest runners were asked to start well behind the official starting line. I'm sure all of this is standard procedure for such large races, but it means your "time" for the race is not all that meaningful really. I finished in 34 minutes, 10 seconds -- but I'm sure I lost about 5 minutes because of the craziness of the beginning of the race. I didn't push myself at all during the race, so I'm fine with that result. Of course, the top man came in at just under 17 minutes, and the winning woman at just over 20 minutes, so I was just an average joe jogging along.

Something else I found fascinating, which again I'm sure is quite normal for these kinds of races, was the noise and chaos of the two water stations they had setup during the race. With thousands of plastic cups being dispensed, the noise of them hitting the ground, and then being trampled repeatedly, was rather strange. I don't envy the groundspeople who will be cleaning up those messes! I also found it rather difficult to actually drink the water in such cups -- no wonder people often just toss it on their faces or over their heads to cool off.

You can read about the event in our local paper here, and there are a few other articles linked from that page, plus a 17-photo gallery too. The race included various local politicians and other well-known folks, perhaps most notably Rochester Mayor Robert Duffy -- who is actually a serious runner from what I understand (I think he was taking it easy during this event). See also the longer writeup at the Chase CC website.