Bloomsday Runners Fill The Cup Corporate Competition So Popular It’S Limited

If Stephen Lamberson is a “boat anchor” - his words - the current must be awfully swift.

The 43-year-old attorney says he hopes to finish this year’s Bloomsday race with a time in the mid-50-minute range.

That could put him among or right behind the 1,000 fastest runners in the 12-kilometer race that kicks off Sunday morning for the 24th year.

“I ran it in 50 minutes one time,” he says.

But he did not run that swiftly last year, which may or may not account for his firm’s failure to win its division in the Corporate Cup competition.

Etter McMahon Lamberson & Clary P.C. finished second to another law firm in the category for companies with up to 24 employees. Six other categories pit teams from larger companies against one another.

Corporate Cup competition is so popular that the Lilac Bloomsday Association, which conducts the race, must limit the number of entries allowed.

Carol Hunter, chairwoman of the group responsible for Corporate Cup competition, said 274 teams were accepted this year.

An experiment a few years ago with as many as 300 teams packed the Sprague Avenue starting area a little too tightly, she said, adding that the relatively roomy space is one of the advantages afforded teams.

But Hunter said Corporate Cup participation spills over to many who won’t wear a team singlet on Bloomsday.

“For me, it’s a wonderful opportunity for employers to encourage fitness,” she said.

Lamberson said Etter McMahon has entered the competition off and on for 12 years. Although close at times, the team has never won.

Besides Lamberson, the other runners will be attorneys Ray Clary, Bill Etter and Kathleen Thompson.

Thompson, a distance runner since her high school days at Gonzaga Prep, says her recent move to Etter McMahon was motivated in part by the firm’s commitment to fitness.

And, she adds in jest, the decision to hire her was based in part on her track experience.

But Thompson is cautious when asked about her potential time. Two knee surgeries - the last just seven months ago - have slowed her down, she says, and workouts take place every other day now, not every day as before.

“This is motivating,” says Thompson, who has not run Bloomsday in five years.

She says running also helps reduce stress. Employees have the freedom to jog as long as their work gets done, she said.

Lamberson says pre-race preparations don’t slow the work pace at the firm, but they do seem to increase the socializing.

“You spend a lot of time together,” he said. “You appreciate the opportunity to have some level of friendship over and above your legal practice.”

Rival law firms also take advantage of race outcomes to do a little good-natured teasing, he said.

“Monday morning, we’re all looking to see where we stack up,” he said.

Hunter, an attorney herself, agreed.

“We start talking about it in March,” she said.

Lamberson likened the mutual support that Bloomsday training engenders to the boost given competitors in another event popular with attorneys, the bar association golf scramble, in which a foursome plays the best ball hit off the tee.

The result, he said, is a chance for everybody to contribute.

“I think it’s great for the spirit of the firm,” he said.

This sidebar appeared with the story: CORPORATE CUP How to score

Don’t understand how Corporate Cup results are scored? Here is an explanation from Carol Hunter, chairwoman of the committee responsible for that phase of Bloomsday competition:

Team runners have their times compared with the best finisher in their age and gender category for all runners, not just cup competitors. But elite and invited runners are excluded from the calculation.

Team runner times are divided by the winning runner’s time to produce a decimal, which is then converted to a whole number.

The three highest numbers are totaled to determine the team’s score.

For example, say a 49-year-old woman finished in 1 minute. The winner in that age group finished in 50 seconds. Fifty divided by 60 equals .833, or 833 as a whole number.

Last year’s winning team from Eastern Washington University piled up a score of 2,986.