Wall Street took its competitive drive to the J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge in New York, the annual 3.5 mile race in Central Park that takes place over two days, with its runners beating thousands to place in the top five so far.
Sean Swift of JPMorgan Chase & Co. is in second place after finishing with a time of 17 minutes and 17 seconds on May 30, the first day of the race, trailing New York Road Runners’ Matthew Forys by two seconds, according to results posted on the J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge website. Ned Cunningham of American Express ranks fourth at 18:18, followed by Stuart Haynes, an executive director in Morgan Stanley’s wealth management group, in fifth place at 18:20.
The second group of runners will be heading to Central Park this evening for day two of the event, which has attracted about 15,000 people working for companies in New York. The course starts near the reservoir on the east side of the park, heading north for more than a mile before looping south to finish on the west side of the park near Strawberry Fields. The Great Hill is one of the most grueling parts of the course.
Among female runners, the leader so far is Meghan Bishop of the Hospital for Special Surgery, who completed the race in 20:16 on May 30, the J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge website shows. Close behind were Bank of America’s Marisa Cummings with a finish time of 20:18 and Morgan Stanley’s Alysia Dusseau at 20:44.
It will be cloudy as participants gather in Central Park this evening, with temperatures around 68 degrees Fahrenheit and a 46 percent chance of rain, according to the National Weather Service forecast. Runners yesterday saw blue skies and raced in similar temperatures.
The J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge, which began in 1977, has expanded into a global event with competitions in 13 cities, including London, Frankfurt, Singapore and Johannesburg. In the U.S., the series of races includes Boston, San Francisco, and Chicago.
Institutional Investor is among the companies registered for the event in New York this year. Large asset managers including KKR & Co., BlackRock, AQR, and Two Sigma are listed as participants in the two-day competition.
This reporter was among the thousands running yesterday, logging a time of 30:35 for an average pace of 8:45 minutes per mile.
