For a team of runners from law firm Mallesons Stephen Jaques, Sunday’s 14km City to Surf in Sydney was not just a run. For the four women, it is part of their training for the upcoming JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge Championship in New York City. There, in October, they will be the only solely female team to represent Australia in a 5.6 km run through Central Park.
In preparation for the trip to New York, the four regularly compete together in the 6km Corporate Cup series held fortnightly around Sydney’s Botanic Gardens and the Domain, as well as in other events. Each woman is now training on an almost daily basis.
Katie Duff: a key client administrator in the firm’s finance team, runs her two energetic Staffordshire Bull Terriers every morning, then cycles to work, and does exercise classes at lunchtime. She has worked for Mallesons for six and a half years and transferred to Sydney from the firm’s Melbourne office 18 months ago. Katie also fits in studying two nights a week at TAFE.
Katie has been running since she was 12 and won triathlons in Victoria. Her secret to preparing for the New York race is cross training and using her holiday in Mexico, after the JP Morgan Championship, as a motivator.
Kate Messiter: is a mergers and acquisitions lawyer who started at the firm as a summer clerk in 2000. At school she was a state-level swimmer and triathlete but has only been running seriously since joining Mallesons. Kate now runs twice at the weekends and 3-4 times during the week.
“If I have to work through lunch, I go running in the afternoon. My supervising partner is flexible about how I manage my time as long as I get my work done.”
She will be celebrating after the JP Morgan Championship by holidaying in Hawaii.
Caroline Sweeney: joined Mallesons in September 2001 and became a senior associate in the firm’s project finance team on 1 January 2006. A keen ski racer (and regularly fastest female or overall winner at the Volvo Lawyers’ Ski Races), she only started running after she joined Mallesons. The 2002 JP Morgan Challenge in Sydney’s Centennial Park was her first race.
In the lead up to the race in New York, Caroline is training for and competing in the ITU Triathlon World Championships in Switzerland in September. As well as her running training, she swims before work three days a week and cycles one weekday morning and at the weekend.
Caroline’s project management skills are proving useful: her swimming, cycling and running gear is constantly in use and being transported between the office and her home. Added to the gear management and training challenges, Caroline is also organising her wedding which is taking place in November.
Samantha Thompson: has been at Mallesons for nearly four years and works as a personal assistant in the construction team. She runs four times a week, either before work in Centennial Park, or at lunchtime in the Domain. She also does exercise classes at the gym and rides her bike to work. Before joining the firm, Sam spent seven years working and travelling in various places around the world. Two travel highlights were kayaking in Alaska and snowboarding in Whistler, Canada.
One of her career highlights is volunteering through the Mallesons in the Community program at the Randwick Ted Noffs Foundation’s ASK! A legal service for youth. In the office, her colleagues are supportive of her enhanced exercise regime.
“It’s great how interested people at work are in us going to New York. Everyone’s always asking when’s your race? As a child I used to do cross country runs and got to state level. Funnily enough my mum always used to say then ‘Imagine what you could achieve if you trained!’”
Sam will be celebrating after the JP Morgan Championship with a Manhattan cocktail.