Whilst staff in Reuters Japan regularly go the extra mile for customers and colleagues, last weekend a few of them went an extra 100 kilometres for charity. The Trailwalker event is an annual event that started in Hong Kong and then spread to Australia, New Zealand and UK. This year it made its debut in Japan, the goal being for teams of four people to cover 100 kilometres within 48 hours, raising sponsorship money which goes to help poor communities worldwide.

Reuters Japan fielded seven teams representing just about every function in the company, and without exception all teams managed to finish, albeit with a few (not serious) casualties along the way. The course in Japan is reckoned to be the toughest, staged in the foothills of Mount Fuji and scaling a dozen peaks before finishing in the beautiful surroundings of Lake Yamanaka, with Mount Fuji looming over all the activity going on below. The teams started preparing weeks beforehand, walking the route, training hard, planning logistics. For every person walking there was another person volunteering to provide support - the event truly brought the company closer together as we worked with colleagues in different ways and saw strengths and abilities of which we had never before been aware.

The event itself was grueling in every way. The terrain was continually changing, ascending and descending rapidly through forests, river beds and rocks. The distance itself meant that teams had to keep going for hours and hours without stopping. Everyone had to walk through darkness in order to finish. And then there was the weather - thick fog on the first night made visibility, even with powerful torches, no better than two meters, accompanied by severe winds. The following morning saw torrential rain before the sun finally came out around midday. Throughout all of this, the spirit that existed within the teams kept them going, and the support groups did a magnificent job in meeting them at every checkpoint and attending to all their needs. The rapport between teams along the route was also remarkable - we were participating alongside a number of customer teams who recognized our logo and immediately started chatting. The most famous comment came from one customer team who called out, as a Reuters team went by, “Reuters News is faster than you are” and then started discussing Reuters research reports. The engagement with the locals along the route was also heart - warming - villagers working in the fields or in their gardens called out to us with words of encouragement and stopped to give us food. So a lot of bridges were built over the weekend between teams, customers, suppliers and the local community.

On top of the personal sense of achievement from participating in this event, there is, however, the main goal which is to raise money for charity. To date the teams have managed to gain sponsorship of around 1.5 million yen, and efforts to raise more will continue. Whilst there is always a lot of talk in any organization about teamwork and going the extra mile, Trailwalker has been a very positive example of the real thing, a grass - roots exercise which has captured the imagination of all those who became involved.