Corporate Challenge results!

Photos

Corp. Challenge & Chicago

When a few of us ran the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge Championships in Johannesburg back in 2010, the global nature of the event felt a bit like the World Cup, which was happening in South Africa at the time. This year, the upcoming Olympics came to mind as seven Google runners and I toed the line in Chicago alongside athletes from seven countries on five continents.

Pre-race reception
At the reception the night before the race, we chatted with runners representing companies from Sydney, Tokyo, Frankfurt and ten other cities in the Chase tower overlooking the Chicago skyline. We even rubbed elbows with Chicago celebrities like Mike Ditka, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan and Harry Carey. After realizing that Mr. Ditka as well as the other four were impersonators, ESPN-junkie Eddie gradually regained balance and picked up his dropped jaw. Good thing since there was plenty to munch on, albeit not your standard pre-race fare: delicious tootsie rolls, hot dogs served by vendors clad in Cubs gear, and other Chicago classics. We even cleansed our palates with Wrigley's gum manufactured nearby.

Race day
Race day was unseasonably warm and windy, even for Chicago standards. Of course, the strongest headwind had to be in the final mile as we entered the homestretch back to gorgeous Grant Park by Lake Michigan. After the race, we kept the adrenaline levels high dancing to a rocking soul band. We learned that the mens team had finished in 3rd place overall, just seconds in front of Swimming Australia Limited from Sydney, and the mixed team had finished in 5th place in the mixed division! Here are the full results.

Post-race
After accepting the awards, we resumed grooving to Blues Brothers covers along with runners from around the world. Then we hung out with Googlers from the Chicago office who had run the open race, which started shortly after the championship, along with about 23,000 other participants.

I have to hand it to the JP Morgan race organizers not only for their fine taste in blues music, but also for their incredible hospitality throughout the event and for putting on a fantastic race series that benefits a number of awesome charities.

However, JP Morgan's caption-writing could be improved :) The site includes a photo of the Google mens team, featuring Eddie with hands outstretched in post-race jubilation and Loren doubled over after clearly leaving everything on the course. The caption reads: Members of Google have some fun as they warm-up for the race.

Video highlights from JP Morgan Corporate Challenge site.

Corporate Challenge Championship in 5 hours

Time to break out the 5 hour energies? Too soon.

Tonight, eight Google runners will join dozens of other corporate running teams from around the world in a race through the streets of Chicago. I'm praying for no headwind. Chicago's not known for being a windy city, right?

During the annual JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge Series, hundreds of companies compete in 3.5 mile road races held in 13 cities, including Singapore, New York City and Johannesburg. To qualify for the 2012 championship and earn a round-trip flight to Chicago, each corporate team of four, either men’s, women’s or mixed, won its local qualifying race in 2009. This year Google won both the mens and mixed divisions of the SF race.

In the elevator on the way to the pre-race reception last night, I met Bradley Croker, a runner from Swimming Australia in Sydney. When the subject of Bay to Breakers came up, he mentioned he had run it too. As we chatted further, I discovered that the race directors had put him up in a hotel in SF as an elite runner and he had finished around top 10. Needless to say, he wasn't running with a stinger and centipede twinkie feelers.

-MK10K

Photo of Google mixed team (From left: Cedric, Gretchen, Jeff  and Elizabeth)

Bay to Breakers results!

Google1 successfully "launched" Beta Breakers on Sunday, covering the 12 kilometer course in 49 minutes (6:34 pace per mile). The 15-Googler 'pede nailed its pace goals while, more importantly, still being able to stomach smiles during the photo checkpoints in the final miles. We're definitely saving the $1 package of Office Depot binder clips and flag football belts for next year.

Below is a photo from the Project Glass Google+ page. As you can see, Blake got the Glass while I wore the "twinkie feelers" (see previous post). He clearly got the short end of the stick.

-MK10K

Announcing the B2B Google1 centipede. In beta.

At Google we sometimes give nicknames to new features and products in development. A fellow Googler told me that when he first started working in Mountain View, he kept hearing about a mysterious product called Beta Breakers. He eventually discovered that Bay to Breakers was actually one of the largest road races/parties in the world -- not a feature on the horizon.

Conversely, Team Google1 eventually realized that this year was in fact time for a Bay to Breakers beta, the first Google1 centipede (that I know of anyway). 15 Googlers connected by bungee cords, office depot binder clips and flag football belts will be running the 12 kilometers (that's 7.4 miles) from San Francisco's Embarcadero to Ocean Beach during tomorrow's 101st running of Bay to Breakers. Most importantly, we secured two of the essentials. According to the official centipede guidelines, "adopted by the International Centipede Congress long, long ago," rules 5 and 6 are as follows:


  5. Twinkie feelers on the head of each segment are required.
  6. The final segment of each centipede must wear a stinger of appropriate design and toxicity.


Considering that the race starts in less than 8 hours, I probably should head to bed. Then again, Google1 runners are used to running on low sleep.

-MK10K

Photos from The Relay are in!

Calistoga The Relay '12

We made it! Strawberry fields forever

Jeff brought us home crossing the finish line at 10:49 am at a strawberry farm in Davenport CA (not Santa Cruz as I mistakenly mentioned earlier). We finished in second place and are heading to refuel at a local breakfast spot to refuel.

Huge thanks to pilots Kerry and Christine for navigating through ambiguity, putting up with the van stench, and keeping us alive! Big thanks also to Jeff and Loren, along with Kerry and Big Cat, for stepping up and leading the charge on organizing this thing -- it makes my head hurt to think of all the logistical details that go into putting something like this together.

Gotta run (figuratively) and join the rest of the crew inside at the breakfast spot. Congrats Google1, the other Google running teams, DSE (the winners), and everyone else who participated in the relay!

-MK-10K

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