The 19th edition of the annual J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge (JPMCC) took place last Thursday at the F1 Pit Building in Marina Bay with over 10,500 participants from over 300 companies.

JPMCC is the world’s largest corporate running event where teams of all speeds and abilities complete a 5.6km running race while spending quality time together outside of work. The event started in 1977 in New York’s Central Park and is now held in 16 locations across eight countries and six continents. Singapore is the second stop on the global series this year and the first in Asia Pacific. 

The JPMCC Singapore guest of honour for the 2024 event was Low Yen Ling, Minister of State for Culture, Community and Youth, and Trade and Industry.

I had the opportunity to take part in the race this year, thanks to J.P. Morgan for arranging it at the last minute. 

The flag off time was 5pm with the race village opening at 3:30pm. I arrived at around 4:20pm and it was quite crowded with throngs of people making their way from Promenade MRT to the F1 Pit Building. 

It took at least 10 minutes for me to navigate the crowds and get to the F1 Pit Building and clear the bag security check. The toilet queues took another 20 minutes to clear.

I managed to get into the start pen just in time, with minutes to go before the 5pm flag off. It was fortunately that we were assigned green bibs and that there was no queue to enter the green bib pen. Green bib runners were those who were “seeded” with faster expected finishing times.  

It was a warm Thursday evening and the sun was relentless. I knew that I could expect a hot and humid run ahead. 

The emcee Kelly Latimer recognised me and waved when I made my way to the front of the start line. It was good to see her again.

We were flagged off sharp at 5pm. Right from the beginning, I could feel the scorching sun burning down on me. 

This weather made it quite challenging to run and I found myself struggling to maintain a 5 minute/km pace, which I should be able to handle for the distance. 

I saw many runners going fast out of the blocks. I told myself that either they are much stronger runners than me, or else they don’t know how to pace themselves and will crash after the first kilometre or so.

The race route was beautiful, flat and scenic and this helped to take my mind off the humidity. We ran down Republic Avenue and the Marina Promenade. Sights that we saw along the way include the Singapore Flyer, Marina Bay Sands and Tanjong Rhu. It is truly Singapore’s landscape at its best and J.P Morgan knew exactly what they wanted when they picked this route. 

This year is a new route to previous years because of the closure of The Float @ Marina Bay, to make way for a new development. 

The distance markers along the way were accurate and tied in nicely to the distance as measured by my Garmin watch.

There were two water stations along the way and these were serving lukewarm water. I feel I would have appreciated it more greatly if the water had been ice-cold. But in this heat and humidity, I think two water points was definitely a good idea, to keep us hydrated along the way. 

As I continued running, I could feel the heat boring into my bones and the humidity was soaking through my skin. It was not pleasant and my pace dropped as a result.

I was soaked with sweat when I reached the halfway mark. But I kept running, telling myself not to stop until I crossed the finish line. 

With one mile left to go, I saw the finish line on the other side of the u-turn. This was the hardest part of the race because I was so close to finishing yet I had to watch others finish while I still had to u-turn and run back.

Finally though, I reached the turning point and it was my turn to head towards the finish line. I picked up the pace at this point and I crossed the line in 28 minutes 48 seconds (official timing). It is an average of 5:09 minutes/km pace and I feel I can be pretty happy with that, as I didn’t slow down as much as I had originally thought I would.

We received a finisher t-shirt at the end point, as well as a lovely cloth bag and plenty of goodies including banana, chocolate milkshake, isotonic beverage and water. It was generous of the organisers to provide quite a number of goodies to participants. The bag looks really nice and I can definitely see myself continuing to use it.

As we were invited guests of J.P. Morgan, we also had access to the hospitality tent, which consisted of dinner catered by Brewerkz. The food was really yummy, ranging from canapés to yoghurt, bangers and mash, roasted meats and free flow of ice cream. It was so good that I ate till I was feeling quite stuffed.

True to J.P. Morgan’s promise about the event being one part run and two parts party, the music and entertainment was awesome too. The music was catchy and infectious and a great way to let your hair down after completing a hard run.

The winners of the JPMCC were Shawn Goh (male) of Fortinet Singapore who crossed in a finish time of 17 mins 36 seconds, beating his own record last year by 23 seconds, and Jasmine Teo (female) of Ice, who ran the course in 21 mins 50 seconds.

We definitely enjoyed my time at the JPMCC. Thanks again to J.P. Morgan for the invitations to experience the event and also take part in the run.

Following another successful edition in Singapore, the JPMCC global series now heads to the USA, with stops in Dallas Fort-Worth, Chicago, Rochester and New York City coming up in May. 

race video