Scott Novell, Development Manager in San Diego - Participated in the La Jolla Gatorman  race for the sixth time.  The Gatorman is the longest running swim race in America, it is a 5k swim from the La Jolla cove to Scripps pier and back, No wetsuits allowed!  It was a tough race this year with 6-7 foot swells and a lot of current, there were times I thought I was going backwards.  It was not one of my fastest times but was still an exciting and challenging event and always an exciting start as seen in the picture!

Robert Subkow, Director of Network & Communications - This weekend marked the 4th annual Helen Woodward Surf Dog Competition at Del Mar in which the Golden Surfer’s were well represented.  Jill Sonar Subkow (Our Golden Retriever) placed 4th in her heat of 13 dogs over 60 pounds, and 7th overall in the X-Large dog category, (Please don’t tell her she is extra large, she is a bit touchy about her weight, lol)….  The waves were challenging as the rip current was strong but Jill was able to get in 11 runs in 20 minutes, well she rode while I ran after the board and reloaded her for the next wave. Hope this is a worthy update

Ryan Lyster, Customer Experience Project Manager - I returned last week from Peru where I did a 4 day trek up the Inca trail to reach Machu Picchu with my Dad on his 60th birthday. The trek was difficult for my standards, reaching 4,215m’s above sea level and hiking the vertical of whistler mountain in a single morning! It was well worth it to see all the stunning ruins along the way and to be surrounded by the Andes. Cant say enough about the experience, would recommend it to everyone! 

Charlie Trottier, Team Manager in San Diego, CA played with his Saturday Ultimate Frisbee league team for 60 minutes, 8 v. 8 and surfed on Sunday for 40 minutes. The waves were huge!

Jim Garfield (AMG) joined 1,500 athletes to compete in the Nautica Malibu Olympic distance triathlon.  Jim joined fellow Active X’s Rebecca Divita and Kelly Schulty along with Active alum’s Chris Wheeler and Carrie James.  In addition to Sunday’s race Jim channeled his inner Mike Riley once again to announce Sunday’s celebrity race.  This year’s field included Terri Hatcher and Felicity Hufffman (DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES), Paul Lieberstein (THE OFFICE), William H. Macy and his high school buddy Jeremy Piven ( ENTOURAGE) among many other celeb’s and 3,500 hard charging athletes. This year’s event raised over $1 Million dollars for Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.

Dave Detar, Account Manager for ActiveOutdoors - My ten year old son (Matthew) chose Labor Day to run in his first ever timed race.  We registered and ran in the 27th Labor Day 5K Classic in Washington, PA.  Since he had never run in an organized race of this length, I kept cautioning him against starting too fast.  Even with the first part of the course downhill, I was concerned when our 1 mile split was 7:15.  I thought Matt was in trouble.  Much to my surprise and delight, he kept running, stopping only for a quick drink at the mid-point water station.  With the finish line in sight, he pushed forward and crossed in 24:03.  This time earned him first place in his age group.  I finished 6th in my age group.  Not bad for what I thought was going to be a leisurely jog to introduce Matt to organized racing! Here is a picture of Matt picking up his first place trophy.

Tina Novak, Software Consultant in Colorado - This weekend I competed in my first adventure race, the Bearable Adventure Race in Lakewood, CO. It was a partner race, though my friend I signed up with hurt her foot last week and had to recruit my boyfriend as a last minute substitute! We had to complete a water crossing, where the hardest part was inflating our mattress we both had to touch at all times… After the swim we mountain biked 10 miles and ran 4 trail miles over the rivers and through the woods with our stuffed bear in tow, all the way to our orienteering challenge where we had to find 6 different points before running to the finish line. IT. WAS. AWESOME.

Jessica Wexler, (Foundations) - Spent the weekend mountain biking, hiking, and camping in the Hurkey Creek area near Idyllwild, California. Next weekend is the big 24 hours of Adrenaline Race so there were many experienced riders practicing the route and zipping past me on the trail. Note to San Diego co-workers this is an excellent place to camp with your dogs!

Toby Guillette, Community Development Specialist, San Diego - For my last long training run before the Noble Canyon 50K on 9/26, I ran up and down Palomar Mountain this weekend via the Nate Harrison Grade Rd. It was a brutal 10-mile ascent with an 8% grade and 4,700’ of climbing. I would recommend it as a solid mountain bike ride but not as a run. The 10-mile descent was a quad killer and got really hot. At least the view was "kinda" worth it

Bret Harris, Account Manager in San Diego - I helped organize this year’s Paddle For Clean Water event around the Ocean Beach Pier.  This is an annual gathering of ocean enthusiasts organized by the Surfrider Foundation to raise awareness about clean water issues here in San Diego by orchestrating a mass paddle out around the longest pier on the west coast.  Unfortunately, this year’s 1.2 mile paddle adventure had to be postponed due to the large swell, but the festival carried on and was a huge success!

This weekend Tina Wilmott in the PR department took trapeze classes in Escondido for a friend’s birthday. I’ve always wanted to try and highly recommend. It was amazing! Here is a video of me (see attached) flying through the air.

PATTI ROSENTHAL, Cycling Account Manager, Durango, CO. Another great backcountry trip up in the San Juan Mountains.  This time to the Wolf Creek area to a spot called Lobo Lookout.  Wolf Creek had just gotten 12 inches of fresh powpow.  Well over a 1,000 feet of climbing up with skins on our skis but the fresh powder runs down was well worth it.  Skiing with great friends on a sunny blue bird day!

JULIUS DAGOT and the [Burnaby office Social Committee |

http://intractive.active.com/Teams/social_committee.html] organized Saturday’s Snow Day—involving 40 employees, family, and friends. The participants skied, snowboarded, and snowtubed at Cypress Mountain. The event was a huge success, and the participants enjoyed a day of fun with the snow, in true Canadian style.

ADNAN ZAIDI played the “Al Mills Memorial Championships”, a USTA sanctioned tournament, in the Men’s 35 Singles. I played well but ended up losing to the #1 seed in the finals. Here is a link to the tournament’s home page (no results have been updated yet):

STEPHEN MATSUBA (Foundations) took part in the 2nd Annual British Columbia Kendo Federation Kendo Tournament as a member of the Vancouver Kendo Club.  The competition hosted participants from B.C. as well as a team from Washington State.  I competed in the individual shodan (1st black belt) division and was a member of the Vancouver Kendo Club’s B Team.  While our team did not make it into the medal round, our club’s A Team came in second.

NICO REIS, Active International, Munich, Germany, went to see the Harlem Globetrotters on the World tour in Germany! Now clearly this is one of the Basketball teams, every fan or Player should see at least once in their life. Amazing ball handling, ridiculous dunks, alley oops, etc. but foremost: Great entertainment. Needless to say they won their game against the Washington Generals (whom the Globetrotters defeated in the past 50 years, by the way).

JIM GARFIELD (AMG) was a victim of the State of California budget woes.  He hit a major pothole on PCH in Malibu while riding up to Ventura. This time it was really only the bike that broke and not his shoulder.  He also discovered that although very cool, the Active riding kit was not road rash resistant.  Hey Arnold…how about throwing some $ towards road repair!!!!

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TOBY GUILLETTE ran 26 miles on the Noble Canyon trail on Saturday morning and then joined up with AIREY BARINGER and JESSE HAMMOND on Sunday for a mellow bike ride through OB, Point Loma, Harbor Island and Little Italy. 

Janean Nation, Account Manager – ActiveSports

My sister Michelle (Product Manager) and I participated in the Iron Girl Las Vegas Triathlon this weekend with another of our sisters.  It was my first triathlon and I had a great time.  Michelle and I did the sprint, finishing 310th and 312th out of about 800 racers.  Michelle had a slightly heroic moment when she helped a panicked swimmer out of the water in the first 25 yards and then swam back up to help me through my weakest leg.  Overall it was a great experience and I can’t wait to give it another go!

Shawn Boom, Sacramento office

On Saturday I ran the Diablo Trail Marathon - 8,000 vertical feet of climbing and 90 degrees, quite a feat and quite tough on the feet given the rocky trail.  I'm normally a 3 hr marathoner and this one was so steep and hilly it took me 7 hours!  Attached is a photo from near the 4,000 ft summit.

Carrie Smith, Marketing Services Conversion Specialist

Last week I was in the British Virgin Islands as part of an open water swim vacation.  The water was so clear that we did underwater videotaping in the sea for stroke analysis!  The temperature was perfect, no wetsuits needed.  This trip had it all…snorkeling, sea life, sailing, plenty of swimming, and sunsets.

Caitlyn Barker, Support Team Lead, Professional Services

I recently travelled to Guam and spent a week swimming, snorkeling and hiking around the island. One of the cool things I discovered was a Geocache game that is played all over the world. Little “caches” like the one in the picture are hidden all over the world and folks are supposed to use GPS devices to find these. I pretty much liken it to a modern day treasure hunt! I just happened to learn about this game when I almost tripped on the canister in the rock on Mt Lam Lam. My boyfriend Colin and I hiked this mountain which happens to be the tallest peak on the island, about 3,000 feet in elevation. Later, we went snorkeling in the bay to cool off. The trip also included a chance to watch some friends participate in the Xterra Off Road Triathlon and Guam Marathon that weekend, watching these participants compete while enduring the high heat and humidity levels amazed me!

Amber Martin

I went on a 3 day cruise to Mexico. Between the sunbathing still managed to get in something Active. We went horse back riding down the beach in Ensenada. My first time on a horse since being bucked off when I was 10…it was interesting to say the least.

Jim Garfield, Director, Business Development

In the true spirit of Mr. Reilly, I had the opportunity to channel him in announcing the Nautica South Beach Triathlon.  In the photo I was happy to announce the winners of the female celebrity relay team (Triathlete Katya Meyer, Tennis Star Anna Kournikova, me and Olympic Gold medalist and world record holder Dara Torres.  Next time I am going to race!!!

Kirstin Hartos, Implementation Analyst

I attended the first of three weekend rugby camps to try-out for the Southern California (SCRFU) women’s select side team.  Each of the seven territories in the US will put a select side team together to play in the USA Rugby National All-Star Tournament in June in Pittsburgh.  We had almost 30 girls at the try-out this weekend, and expect more players at the camp in Los Angeles at the beginning of May.  On Saturday we did some ball-handling, tackling and fitness testing in the morning, broke out into backs and forwards in the afternoon to run through set plays, and then scrimmaged ourselves at the end of the day.  On Sunday morning we had another scrimmage against another women’s team representing the Mid-Atlantic Rugby Football Union (MARFU), but ended up losing 15-0 after 110 minutes of rugby.  I managed to nail the goal-post on our only penalty kick attempt, and the ref changed his mind and took back our try in the first period – it was a frustrating that we didn’t convert on our opportunities to score.  But aside from being generally sore (and bruised), I managed to stay injury free – and am looking forward to the next camp in May.

Michelle Valenti

I supported being active by attending the Navy Moto X World Championships at Qualcomm. I had a fantastic time and really enjoyed the event! The freestyle tricks are unbelievable, and riders like Ricky Carmichael and Travis Pastrana are really impressive to watch.

Tina Novak, Software Trainer

I was up in Utah for a long weekend, camping, hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, and all around loving life at the majestic Zion National Park. Hiked up a bunch of different trails there, but the highlights were Observation Point and Angels Landing. Observation Point we kind of tackled as an afterthought, and came to find out that we hiked 4 miles to the top of Zion (about a mile high) where this photo was taken. What? You can hike to the top of Zion? I’m glad we didn’t know we were going that high because we might not have done the hike! Angels Landing was my most challenging hike, not physically, but emotionally. I am absolutely terrified of heights but managed to crawl my way across the narrow trails with 1,000 foot drop offs on both sides to the top to enjoy the amazing views. Talk about feeling accomplished!

Alex Walker, sales at EventRegister and Andrew Frantz, developer from Thriva, took a trip to Steven’s Pass for a little action in the Terrain Park. After months of building up the courage, faceplants and failed attempts, we finally we able to compile this short video of our accomplishments.

San Diego Mud Run

LAURA HILTS, ANDREA RISHMAWI, and CARRIE JAMES did the SD Mud Run (Team 5k) Sunday afternoon. At 100 degrees, it was a scorcher, thank God for those breathable Active X shirts

Marc Villanueva,Danny Roa, Bryan Paijit, Jesse Hammond and Jesse's girlfriend

"Mud Run Baby!!!"

Kevin Beatty

Ran in the San Diego 10K Mud Run in La Mesa with a group of friends. Still picking the mud out of my ears and fingernails today but had a blast doing it. No idea what our time was.

Amy Steiner, Heidi Achenbach and Christina Hanson ran the San Diego Mud Run on Sunday. We finished the hilly, muddy, obstacle-ridden and crowded 5K course at 50:10, but with temperatures over 100° in La Mesa on Sunday, we’re just glad we survived it!

Lacey Shaw, Polly Marrangoni and Katrina LeBlanc did the San Diego Mud Run 5K in el Cajon on Sunday. As temps reached record breaking 100 degrees we were glad there was some mud to cool us off. =)

"Friendships born on the field of athletic strife are the real gold of competition. Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust."

-Jesse Owens (American Athlete, 4 time Gold Medalist in Track and Field at the 1936 Olympic Games, 1913-1980)