Blog Posts From What's your ACTIVE? Tagged With updates

A Grand Fondo Weekend

guest — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 21:32:28 GMT

Rui Zhang (Class Team): ActiveX-Xi'an Ping-Pong tournament!

ActiveX-Xi'an Ping-Pong tournament is held in Xi’an now. There are 29 Activers from different teams to attend the tournament; these players are divided into 2 groups by drawing lots. The whole tournament includes group game and Elimination game, and there are 196 matches to take place only in group stage. 8 players in each group can enter into Elimination game! This is really funny and interesting with a long schedule around 2 months. Every afternoon, many colleagues will come to watch the matches and add oil for players.

Danae Brooker, Director of Business Solutions:

I wanted to provide you an update of my 10-year old son and my Spring Break. We rode from Yuma (the Colorado River) to Carlsbad (the Pacific Ocean). We completed 224 miles over 6 days! Awesome trip!!! Here are some pictures:

Marshall & Danae dip their tires in the Colorado River at the start of the trip!

Marshall riding down a dirt road to get to our first campsite.

Mornings were cold as we geared up to ride between 35 and 55 miles per day!

A quick rest stop before continuing the ride through the Anza Borrego Desert.

The weather changed drastically as we headed into Julian – riding up Banner Grade, I was actually knocked off my bike by a huge gust of wind!

On Saturday, we make it to the Pacific Ocean to dip our tires!

Here is the entire group of riders – 50 of which are 5th graders! Amazing!

Robert T. Klingensmith, Vice President, Media + Marketing: Team Active lines up for the third annual Gran Fondo Colnago San Diego. Thanks to everyone at Active for their support... it was the best event yet!!

MIKE REILLY rode the Gran Fondo 60 mile event and it was an Active history day. Mike rode with Active USA founder JIM WOODMAN all 69 miles talking about the beginning years of Active up to the present. The 60 miles went by in a flash. Our own ROB KLINGINGSMITH produced the event and LARKIN GEYER & LINDSAY NESSELROAD lead the way at the start.

Jeannie M. Freis, Associate Product Manager: The Boulder office sent 4 teams to Sunday’s Buckhorn Exchange (half marathon) Relay. I ran most of leg 1 (5 miles) with fellow ActiveXers Brett Burch and Chuck Langdon, and was thankful for their many encouraging words along the way. Just prior to the race start, Brett stated his intention was to see if he could get one of us to throw up. “After all, this is a race and we should push ourselves!” added Chuck. Attached is the photo of my relay team members post race - my boyfriend, Kelly Feagans, me, and friend Katy Rhoades. We came in 8th in the co-ed relay division.

Michael O’Brien, Desktop Management: I ran a 5K for St. Jude this past Saturday in Nashville. I raised over $200 in donations and set a personal record of 29:21. I attached a pic of me in my St. Jude racing jersey before heading out the door to run.

Scott Yeske, Industry Manager: My "Thirsty Niners" Ice Hockey Team Won the Winter Season Championship this past weekend. We played a best of 3 series and Won 2 games to 1. This marks our Second Championship in Three Seasons!

Damon Mathews, Sr. Web Designer: Damon took 2nd place in his pool at the 2011 Las Vegas Footbag Jam. Competitors traveled from as far away as Austrailia to attend the event. This was the second time Damon has competed at this event. Below is a link to some random Footbag Circles at the event. Damon is seen in the opening shot and again at 6:06.

The overall winner this year (and last year) was tournament host and director Evan Gatesman from Las Vegas. The official final Circle Contest can be seen in the video below:

Dak Jordan (ActiveEducate) and Mike Fries, ran in the Shamrock Shuffle 8k in Chicago. After a long, cold, snowy winter, the sun came out and the temperature was in the low 70's, perfect for a run.

Eric Olson, GM of SMB Events, watched his fiancée Mary Beth Ellis out sprint fellow American Kelly Williamson down the finishing shoot for the 70.3 US Championship and 4th overall at Texas 70.3. She fought through jet lag and a cold for a strong follow up to her win at Singapore 70.3 two weeks ago. The race was more stressful for the spectator than the racer. Notice the Active.com logo on the finishing shoot. Sweet.

Karen Hardy, Christina Hanson & Sarah Moosbrugger completed the Medio Fondo 60 Miler with a bunch of fellow ActiveX’ers. We had a blast & think it would have been even more fun if we trained for it!

Alicia Towery, (Technical Account Manager) ran the San Marcos Roundup - 11K Double Peak Challenge and was the 2nd female overall. The course was straight up a trail for the first three miles with a total elevation gain of 1600 ft. It was a fun and challenging course.

MATTHEW HENRY (Bothell, WA) did not pass go and most certainly didn't collect $200 when The Game of Life played Monopoly on Friday night. We had a much better showing, though, losing 15-7. Some great bids (So close to making a catch behind my back!) But we're getting better! In bigger news, the Sentinels are in the championship game tonight (that's 9 pm at Kingsgate in Kirkland, if you're in the area)! After a horrible regular season, we won our game last Sunday night 3-2 and are now undefeated through the playoffs. Hopefully the season ends tonight, but if we lost tonight, we get one more chance to seal the deal.

Tyler Jump, Account Manager - Camps, and Janean Nation, Sales Manager - Sports, enjoyed a late winter storm and spent the weekend snowboarding in Utah. The powder was fresh and the riding was EPIC!

Liz Harrell (Director - Project Management, San Diego) and her boyfriend Hal Helbock rode the 105 mi route of the Gran Fondo on Sunday. We started the ride together, but that was about it. Lots of hills and headwind made for a great training day for me. (10 weeks and 6 days until Ironman!) Hal was the 3rd cyclist to cross the finish line... even though this was a "ride" and not a "race". Not too shabby for a Mountain Biker. :-)

Chris Gielow, ActiveWorks Interaction Designer, poses at the Olympic Training center SAG station, the halfway point at the Gran Fondo San Diego.

Vanessa Allen, Senior Marketing Manager, Sports, spent a week in Petite Riviere de Nippes, in southwest Haiti, working with school kids on art instruction at a school supported by the American Haitian Foundation. We took opportunities to do some sight-seeing, too, and on our last day in Haiti visited Saut du Baril spring/cascades up in the mountains. We hiked up the trail/road +/- 5 miles to visit the falls that are fed by a natural spring out of volcanic rock. Beautiful, cool clean water – a great way to cool off after a long, hot hike! My friends along for the trek are Mary and Debbie (ActiveX-ers by affiliation). Photo also included of one of our “art school” sessions with the students.

Lindsay Nesselroad (International Specialist) and Larkin Geyer (previous long time Active employee and current Active family member) finishing the Gran Fondo! What a great day and an even more amazing ride!

Steve Mazza had a great ride at the Gran Fondo Colnago, a great day, sunny and lots of smiling Active faces! Kudos to Rob and his team for such a well organized event. Photo snapped as I finished.

DEMIAN DORRANCE, Sr. Systems Engineer, San Diego -
My 16-year-old son and I volunteered then rode in our third Colnago Gran Fondo San Diego, taking on the challenge of the 105 mile century route with many miles of back country climbing. Hills are my biggest challenge on a bike, and the six mile continuous climb of the "king of the mountain" stage took everything I had. This was the only timed stage, and my 1hour 38minute grind placed me 908 out of 910 riders that attempted the climb-- brutal, but not dead last!

We rode the countryside together, but near mile 83 I turned my son loose to push himself for a better time - he still had fresh legs and mine were pretty well done. We both finished the full century route, a little late, but at least we made it back during daytime this year unlike the year before. Big improvements for both of us in completing our second century ride ever. We handled two flats and had fewer technical difficulties than the 2010 Gran Fondo. Loved the course changes from last year, which worked out well and tested us with a serious endurance event including 5,500 feet of climbing and headwinds for the last 25 miles. The event featured beautiful weather, a remote course green from the recent rains, and first class SAG support. A big thanks to the team at Active in supporting another great Gran Fondo, and also to the friends and family that came out to cheer us and other riders on the course.

Active Boston Marathon April Weekend

guest — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 22:55:59 GMT

MIKE REILLY working and reporting from the Boston Marathon. Happy Patriots Day! His daughter Erin (white visor) and Niece Kim (Pink visor) ran the marathon for the first time. Lisa Rainsberger the last American woman to win Boston (1985) started the women's race. Robert Cheruiyot from Kenya set a new course record in 2:05:52. The Boston Marathon in my opinion is the best in the world and not to be missed.

Photos from Mike:

Jim Garfield (M&M) and Jared Hinkley (M&M) participated in the 6k DOW/Live Earth Run for Clean Water. Active is doing the registration for this 200 city world wide event to raise awareness for clean drinking water. 6K is the average distance a woman has to walk in Africa to get to clean drinking water. The DOW event is also the largest clean water initiative in history. We were joined by Los Angeles based advertising agency clients, professional triathlete Jenny Fletcher and Fall Out Boy musician Pete Wentz.

Lindsay Nesselroad Solana Beach Training @ Mission Bay Park. 4/17 Good Times!!

Stella Cardenas (daughter of Stephany Cavatoni, GM, Consumer Insight and Access) and her U6 Softball Team had a great game against tough competitors this weekend – and all team members had great hits (no tee required!) and are really picking up their fielding game. Stella rocked out first base!

Eddie Rafols, Software Trainer, kicked off my running season with the St. Albert 10 Mile Road Race on Sunday. I finished with a personal best of 1:10:11. And true to my roots as a member of the golf consulting group, I managed to squeeze in a round of golf in the afternoon as well!

This is WW report from Xi'an, China.

Weekend Warriors From XI'AN, CHINA - CASH XU (Accountant), EDA ZHAO (Development Tools Administrator), PAUL GUO (Desktop Administrator), Fod Shadbakht (English Trainer) and ERIC MA (Directory Market Dev, M+M) took an 80K (60K Flat, 10K Uphill and 10K Downhill) tour ride to Jiulong Pond, a beautiful scenic spot in Qinling Mountains.

It was not cool to ride in such a chilly day, especially they just experienced a weird snow last week in Xi'an! But it's an awesome ride with such a great group. There're so many funs riding the sinuous rocky terrain, so challenging to ride uphill! While downhill was crazy, their hands were so stiff to hold the brake all the while for 20mins, besides have to dodge the vehicles passing through!

Tawnya Bordalo, Heidi Achenbach, James Sola and Jeremy Spitzberg enjoyed a beautiful Sunday morning ride from Fiesta Island to Solana Beach and back (35mi). As expected, the fog you see in the picture burned off just as we were about to climb the hill at Torrey Pines.

Brooke Kirkpatrick, Account Manager, ActiveSports - I celebrated "spring back to Vail" for the last day of skiing this season. We have a tradition of dresssing up as Omigos and Senoritas every year. Yesterday was a perfect blue bird day to spend the day with friends, skiing, and watch pond jumping!

Evan Witte (Product Manager - Foundation) ran the Carlsbad 5000 last weekend with a finishing time of ~20 minutes. Unfortunately due to losing a bet he donned a full 80's inspired costume in celebration of the 25th anniversary event.

Busy weekend here in the NW. Rain or shine, we had a Zoo Outing followed by a Red Mill Burger Outing(In and Out of Seattle). Great day out with Family and Friends. Thank you for coming out to play

Daffodil Classic Metric Century (100 kilometer/62 mile).

Sijen Olthof and Nicole Pelley (Business Analyst)rode the Daffodil Classic this weekend. Great day for a ride with Mt. Rainer as our backdrop. This is the longest distance we have ever ridden. Our goal by the end of the summer is to ride from Seattle to Portland.

Toby Guillette, Social Media Specialist in San Diego camped out in Cuyamaca State Park (thanks ReserveAmerica!) with Airey Baringer, Jesse Hammond and Mike Clarke and did a 5 hour mountain bike ride on Saturday

Active Lifestyle Weekend

guest — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:01:31 GMT

ActiveX made a good showing at the 2010 Endurance Sports Awards ride and expo this past Saturday. A number of Xers participated in the 200+ cyclists, 25 mile bike ride. Mike Reilly, Ricky Gray, Airey Baringer, Mark Warble, Marc Villaneueva, Tawnya Bardolo, Chris and Julie Barnwell, and Arch and Christy Fuston rode in the peloton with the likes of Craig Alexander (2009 Ironman Hawaii winner), Chris Lieto (2009 Ironman Hawaii runner-up), and Kristen Armstrong (world-champion trim trial). We got dropped.

Rebecca Divita (ETeams), Jim Garfield (M&M) and Tina Novak (Active) journeyed to Aspen for the winter X-Games. Thrills, chills and definite spills were had by all, including the three of us. Truly death deifying and gravity resistant tricks were the rule of the weekend….oh and a live concert by 50cent….

Orlando, FL, some of the ActiveGolf team went to Orlando for the 2010 PGA Show. The day prior to the show a group of us (Ben Cruise, Matt Kessler, Joe Pink and Don Cramer) were able to get in a round of golf at the new Waldorf Astoria Golf Club at Disney World (OpenCourse Client). The golf was unfortunately, well above par. However, it was a great time to catch up and enjoy the sport we are involved in.

Liz Harrell (Director, Product Management & Projects), Kat Keivens (Online Operations) and Jeremy Spitzberg (Development Manager, UI) rode the coast on a beautiful Sunday morning in Southern California. 26 miles from Solana Beach to Carlsbad and back. Gearing up for the Gran Fondo in a month!

Deborah Linggi, Director, Employee Communications -- New Year's resolutions to get/stay fit are still going strong. I taught packed spin classes on both Saturday and Sunday morning at 24 Hour Fitness.

On Saturday, Kat Keivens (Online Account Coordinator) ran in the Lake Hodges 5k Race along with some fellow Active Employees and finished with a time of 26:04.40. On Sunday Kat enjoyed a scenic 26 mile bike ride and played a soccer game.

Michele Crepeau Skied Vail sat, snow shoed at Beaver Creek Sunday, AMAZING:)

Toby Guillette, Social Media Specialist in San Diego, ran the Sun Strides Foundation Lake Hodges 5K on Saturday morning in 18:24 which was good for 8th place overall and 1st place in the 20-29 age group. It was great to celebrate at the finish line with fellow Active Weekend Warriors who also ran the 5K: Andrea Rishmawi, Giselle Domdom, Kat Kievens and Jason Johnson!