Wall Street’s Marathoners Go the Extra Mile

For many runners on Sunday, the evening after the New York City Marathon was a time to relax. But Hugh Parker wasn’t sure he would be able to.

“I was worried about being called into work after the marathon,” said Mr. Parker, a first-year investment banking analyst at Credit Suisse. He added: “It was really special to be able to get enough sleep the two days beforehand.”

Such are the concerns of a competitive runner employed on Wall Street. Despite a demanding work schedule, Mr. Parker, 23, was able to finish in 2 hours 35 minutes 35 seconds, coming in 56th in the men’s division, in an overall field of about 50,000 runners.

Like Mr. Parker, a number of the top runners in Sunday’s race spend their days toiling on Wall Street, at hedge funds and at big banks like Goldman Sachs. Greg Cass, the 64th finisher in the men’s race, who was profiled in The New York Times on Monday, is an investment banker at Barclays.

In a sense, this is not surprising: Finance appeals to workers with a competitive drive. But these amateur runners have to balance a training regimen against the demands of a job that can dominate their waking hours.

Some finance workers who ran on Sunday took Monday off from work. But Alexandra Cadicamo, 25, was at her desk in the investor relations department of Goldman Sachs the next morning.

With a time of 2 hours 51 minutes 33 seconds, Ms. Cadicamo came in 26th place in the women’s race. Among the female runners who work on Wall Street, she was the fastest. At Goldman, that accomplishment earned her lots of kudos.

“Everyone gathered around, listening to my stories,” said Ms. Cadicamo, who ran competitively in college but had never before completed a marathon.

As Phillip Falk ran on Sunday, his coworkers at Gapstow Capital Partners, a small hedge fund, tracked his progress online and saw him on television. When he arrived at work on Monday, after finishing in 2 hours 34 minutes 44 seconds, the chief operating officer of the firm joked that Gapstow should sponsor him, complete with its logo, Mr. Falk recalled.

“I think you already do,” Mr. Falk, 29, replied with a laugh.

Runners like Mr. Falk - who finished 48th in the men’s race, making him Wall Street’s fastest man - aren’t making any prize money.

But to many, running can be a helpful complement to a grueling work schedule. Mr. Parker, the Credit Suisse analyst, said he runs in Central Park during the week with a friend at Barclays, often logging 10 miles before work.

In October, Mr. Parker said, he would cram workouts into his weekends, going 10 miles Friday nights, 20 miles on Saturdays and then hill workouts on Sundays. (For a young worker on Wall Street, weekends don’t mean a break from work - just less of it.)

Mr. Falk, the hedge fund analyst, said he began to commit to running after losing his job. It was 2009, in the depths of the financial crisis, when he was laid off from Morgan Stanley in a round of cuts.

“I suddenly had quite a bit more time on my hands,” said Mr. Falk, who ran cross-country in high school but did not run competitively in college. “One of the ways I filled it was by becoming a more dedicated runner.”

In the process, he has developed camaraderie with other Wall Street runners.

On Monday, Mr. Falk shot off an e-mail to Brent Frissora, an analyst at the hedge fund LibreMax Capital, who ran the marathon in 2 hours 36 minutes 8 seconds, putting him in 60th in the men’s race - behind Mr. Falk.

“Think we traded leads a couple times,” Mr. Falk said in the e-mail.

For Mr. Frissora, running and finance are intertwined with romance. He met his wife, Eva, when they were investment banking interns at Bank of America in 2005, according to their wedding website. When they returned to the bank for full-time jobs, they began running together before work in Central Park.

“Brent was so kind, and patiently accompanied Eva on her long and slow jogs,” the website says.

But for all their competitiveness, Wall Street’s men were outdone by a commercial strategist at Statoil, who was working in Connecticut for the week.

The strategist, Paolo Natali, who is based in London, finished in 2 hours 26 minutes, 27th place among the men. He said he uses his lunch breaks to run in Hyde Park and exercises again after work at the gym.

“I can arrange my own timing around what I need to do,” he said. “It’s quite easy.”

As for Mr. Parker, at Credit Suisse? He didn’t have to report to work on Sunday after all.