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The 2004 JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge Championship will be the most global and competitive in history. The best corporate runners from six countries on five continents will compete on Saturday, October 2 on New York's famous Park Avenue. This is one of a series of features about teams training for the Championship. You'll want to visit all the stops on the Road to the Championship to read about the participants who have found the perfect blend of workplace productivity and race course swiftness. |
8th STOP: BOSTON
After fielding winning Mixed and Female teams, Saucony poses for a
team photo on historic Boston Common.
Saucony, Raytheon hope for best,
but not just in race results
Sharon Tillotson is hugged by teammate Brian Mahoney while Chris Teague, another teammate, looks on after Tillotson's win. |
Boston (September 13, 2004) – For the last three years, Boston's Saucony has been inching closer and closer to the top of the Mixed Team division. Third in 2002 and second in 2003, Saucony is wondering if this could be the year it knocks off formidable three-time defending champion Roche Diagnostics of Frankfurt.
“We hope it will be our time to win!” said Saucony's Sharon Tillotson, who experienced her share of triumph at Boston's rainy race in June when she ran off the Female title and anchored her team to a successful defense of its Mixed title.
And yet, as hopeful and competitive as the members of the Saucony team are, they also realize other things in life sometimes push even running to the back burner. In fact, if there is a common thread among Boston 's two top teams in 2004 – Saucony's Mixed team and Raytheon's always competitive Male squad – it is that sometimes life throws you other priorities.
“There is a lot of time between the Boston race and the Championship and a great many things have happened to our team,” said Tillotson. “One of those things is that a teammate is a new first-time father. Most of his focus now is on his family and we are excited for him and think that is the best decision to make.”
In a race as close as the tussle between Roche Diagnostics and Saucony is expected to be on Park Avenue, that re-shifted focus could be the difference. If it is, as Tillotson suggests, that will just have to be okay.
In the case of Raytheon, this is the fastest American Male team in 2004. It won at Boston by a margin of more than nine minutes over the first non-Raytheon team. Its 1:11:03 is an extremely competitive sixth in the top 10 rankings. And, it won the Male Series Championship title in 2002 and finished fourth last year.
Justin Lutz |
However, Raytheon isn't expected to be as competitive as it might have been at the Championship. Its top runner, Justin Lutz, who finished second overall at Boston in 16:55, won't be running in New York. Neither will former Boston champion and fourth-place finisher this year Ryan Carrara. While Raytheon has the luxury of having great replacements from a “B” team that finished second in Boston, you don't lose runners of the caliber of Lutz and Carrara without it making a big impact.
“I have a family wedding that weekend and Stephen Sergeant will be replacing me on the team,” said Carrara.
Lutz is another story. After the Boston race, he was called up to active military duty and is fighting in Fallujah, Iraq, said Carrara.
“We just hope he comes back safe,” said Carrara.
Different priorities, indeed.
Yet the more normal activities of life go on and the Championship will be an international celebration of an idea that began 28 years ago to promote physical fitness in the workplace. The idea has spread to five continents and attracted more than 200,000 participants this year. Saucony is a great example of why.
“Here at Saucony, we are so lucky to run and work out at our lunch breaks or even in the morning before heading to our desks,” said Tillotson. “We have a locker-room, as well as a weight room. It just goes to show that Saucony is truly a running company. Having our Mixed team and our Female Team qualify for New York City proves just that. Without the positive reinforcement from our CEO, VPs, and co-workers, we probably wouldn't be so lucky.”
Saucony ran to its Mixed team title on the strength of dominating performances by its two female runners – Tillotson and Jessica McGarty. Tillotson won the overall female title in 20:32 and McGarty was second, a minute behind. Rounding out the team are veterans Chris Teague (17:38) and Brian Mahoney (17:58). They defeated a strong Boston College team that included individual Male champion John Mortimer (16:29) by seven minutes.
“I was shocked to win at Boston,” said Tillotson, a 26-year-old Sports Marketing Coordinator who normally races only twice a year, at the Boston Corporate Challenge and the Championship. “I wasn't in that good of shape to be winning any kind of race. People were telling me during the race that I was the first female … but I kept telling myself that they were all wrong and that there was probably a woman way up there with really short hair.
“But,” added Tillotson, “I was wrong and they were right.”
Now, can they defeat a team as talented as Roche Diagnostics?
“Everyone just needs to have a good day,” Tillotson said. “It's a team event and one person doesn't shine … it's all four runners.”
And, sometimes, even a bit more than that.
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Saucony's Female team won in 1:34:43 and is made up of Lizzi Gati (22:30), Carrie Bartlett (22:55), Jerri Pratt (24:21) and Karyn Watt (24:57).
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