Presented by JPMorgan Chase & Co.
It’s time to register for Chicago’s most iconic after-work event.
The 2024 J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge will mark its 41st running when it takes off from the Columbus Drive starting line on Thursday, May 16 at 6:50 p.m. The 3.5-mile team run/walk has been a staple for the Chicago business community since its debut in 1982.
Now, as it was then, the Corporate Challenge will be staged at beautiful Grant Park, with the competition preceding post-race hospitality at hundreds of company tents dotted throughout the historic green space.
Registration is open now and will remain so through Thursday, April 18. The entry fee is $65 per person, and each entrant must join a company team, with a minimum of four entrants per team, with no maximum.
Hospitality reservations are also available and historically more than 75-percent of all participating companies reserve space within Grant Park, making it the biggest after-work party of the year for the Chicagoland business community.
Companies will want to plan their participation with a sense of urgency as there is the likelihood that the Corporate Challenge will reach a full capacity of entries — an annual occurrence before COVID. The indicators were set last May when 15,017 entrants from 409 companies registered. That represented a 57% increase in entrants and, impressively, 46% of the companies were either first-time participants or were returning for the first time since COVID.
For an indication of the diversity of businesses that turn out in big numbers for the Corporate Challenge, here are the 10 largest companies in terms of entries in 2023: Event owner and operator JPMorgan Chase (1,689 entrants), Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois (224), Morningstar (219), Capital One (203), Molex (199), Northern Trust (198), CME Group (196), University of Chicago (188), Citadel (185), and Echo Global Logistics (178). This makes it the ideal event to network and forge connections with other members of the Chicago corporate community.
The fastest of the participating companies in 2023 were Accenture, JPMorgan Chase, and EY, who were the first-place teams in the men’s, women’s and mixed divisions, respectively. The individual men’s and women’s champions were Phil Lambert from DL Trading, who covered the 3.5 miles in 16:26, and Petra Bakosova of Hull Tactical, with an official time of 19:57. If you think Lambert’s 16:26 effort was exceptionally fast, it is. In fact, it was the fastest men’s time in the entire 15-city 2023 J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge Series.
Despite that, though, entrants do not need to be seasoned runners to enter the Corporate Challenge. Racers, joggers and walkers of all abilities are welcome, and all have the option of having their results posted on the Series Leaderboard.
Chicago is part of the 2024 J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge Series, which is scheduled to visit 16 cities in eight countries on six continents. This will be the 48th consecutive year of operation for the Series dating back to 1977, with 46 years of in-person racing and two years of Virtual participation during COVID.
If you’re interested in participating, register as a Team Captain and rally your co-workers to join you.