Good Company

This year five members of our office represented Standard & Poor’s at the JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge. With three men and two women we had the right mix for one coed team, two males and two females, with one extra runner. Weather was ideal and the stunning scenery made one forget about the pain, or maybe a little of it.

Eighty percent of our team is shown above. It's me, Anne Selting, Jessica Schultz and Chris Morgan. The team results for the 3.5 mile race:

• Larry Witte: 21:49 (99th among men)*
• Chris Morgan: 29:10*
• Paul Dyson: 29:49
• Anne Selting: 31:46*
• Jessica Schultz: 38:12*

*Times includes in team scoring.

The combined coed time of 2:00:57 was eight minutes faster than our coed team from 2008. For comparison, our male team from last year was about 20 minutes faster. As a team we finished 54th among coeds, exactly in the middle of the 107-team field in that division.

After the race we held the second annual S&P JPMCCC Awards Ceremony at Amici’s. Awards went to:

• Chris Morgan: Rookie of the Year for having the fastest time among first-year runners.
• Paul Dyson: Johnny Kelley Award. (Also ‘AAA’ winner, see below.) Paul has the longest streak for running this race among those in our office. Johnny Kelley ran the Boston Marathon a record 61 times, winning it twice, finishing second seven times, and placing in the top 10 18 times. The marathon was a smaller affair in Kelley’s heyday (there were no Kenyans, Ethiopians, or professionals), but his time of 2:30 in 1945 translates to a pace of 5:45 per mile. He was named Runner of the Century by Runner’s World magazine. Kelley passed away at 97 in 2004.
• Anne Selting: Most Electrifying Runner. Anne was our first corporate runner ever and she’s a utilities analyst.
• Jessica Schultz: Oldest Shoes. At least three years old. I'm very proud of Jessica. This was her first race ever. She did well and without her we wouldn't have fielded a team.

Above is our whole team at Amici's. Paul, on the right, joins me, Chris, Jessica and Anne. The day after the race the panel of judges (me) noticed the oversight of not naming the ‘AAA’ Award winner for predicting the closest actual time. Paul won, coming within four seconds of his predicted time. Anne was a very close second, 14 seconds from her predicted time.