The 15th edition of the J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge took place recently, flagging off on St. Andrew’s Road in the historic Civic District and saw a crowd of 14,256 participants from 387 companies running the scenic 5.6km route from the National Gallery Singapore to the F1 Pit Building.

Photo courtesy of JPMCC.

The men’s race had been won by joint winners, Gen Lin Foo, 35, and Joshua Li, 31, both from MOH Holdings, who crossed the finish line with a time of 19 minutes and 15 seconds.

And winning the women’s race was Suzy Walsham, 44, an accountant at Symantec who recorded a time of 19 minutes and 44 seconds. She also finished the race in 5th position overall.

Photo courtesy of JPMCC.

Said Suzy, “It’s pretty hard, I’m pretty tired but super happy to have won. It’s such a great event. There is a lot of work camaraderie and it’s fantastic to work with my colleagues as a team.”

Suzy had admitted that her strategy had been to basically focus on her own race and not to worry about the rest of the field at all.

Photo courtesy of JPMCC.

She said, “I was concentrating on my own race and not really worrying about the others. I had a good run a couple of weeks ago at the 2XU Compression Run 5km event and my training has been going well since then so I felt good.” 

Continued the runner, “I know that at the start of this race, it is really crazy with lots of guys going out really fast so I tried to be in control and hold back a bit and just find my rhythm. I was in 20th place overall at the 1km mark and I kept on going at an even pace, picking off some of the guys who were slowing down.”

Besides winning the women’s event, Suzy is also the first woman who has broken the 20 minute mark at the J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge in Singapore.

She said, “I had hoped to be the first lady to break the 20 minute barrier. I have done it before but with racing you never know. I may have improved or may end up running slower.

Continued Suzy, “I don’t really race a lot in Singapore because most of the road races here clash with my stair races. I am doing so many stair races, and I don’t want to race every weekend because I also need to spend time going out for meals with my hubby.”

Besides being a champion at many road races in Singapore, Suzy is also a world champion at stair running, having dominated the world renowned Empire State Building Run Up in New York, by winning it nine times.

So what tips does Suzy have for other runners? She said, “I like to tell others to concentrate on your own race and to improve yourself and your timing. Try not to focus on other people’s performance. I cannot control how other people are going to compete. I can only control how I compete, so I try and judge my performances based on that.”

She added, “Someone else may be having a really good day and I cannot do anything about that. Or sometimes I may have a bad day but that is part and parcel of racing. If I have a bad race, I try and think about what I did wrong and how I can improve on it the next time around.”