Thought is was time to update “ELB Extreme” for the past year (2011).

Here are a few of the extreme events:

Couple’s Laser Tag
We had to do a “couple’s laser tag” tournament before Brother Shawn moved to Hawaii. Brother Shawn and his wife are true snipers.

eLB Pool Tournament
Brother Shawn is the 2011 Pool Shark. He won the eLB Pool Tournament with Brother Andrew finishing a close 2nd and Brother Justin in 3rd.

Ragnar Relay Race: Wasatch Back
Brother Andrew and his wife, Sharlynn, ran on a 12 person team last summer that covered over 190 miles. The Ragnar relay race was from Logan Utah to Park City Utah (over tons of very steep mountains) and lasted just over 30 hours. Each ran 3 different legs of the race and Andrew’s last leg was 4 miles up a 10% grade (from 7,000 to almost 10,000 feet altitude). Sharlynn ran over 20 miles total. Here’s more about the Ragnar Race.

Hawaii
Brother Shawn got tired of the cold and moved to Hawaii (Kauai) for a year. He now enjoys surfing, long-boarding, spear fishing, and most importantly…the warm weather. If you happen to be in Kauai this year make sure you borrow the eLearning Brother’s surfboard for the day. (Free for nice customers)

The Dirty Dash
Brother Andrew, his wife, and his oldest 2 daughters ran the Dirty Dash last summer. It is a race in Midway Utah at a local ski resort. You run through snow machines, climb walls, slide down slip-n-slides, jump in mud pits, and more. Team Scivally finished the race and didn’t loose any kids.

Moab Biking
Brother Andrew did the Porcupine Rim trail in Moab for the first time last summer. After his group of 4 had broken brakes, snapped spokes, 7 flats, and a shortage of water, they finally made it home. (no broken bones this time)

ASTD and Universal Studios
While at the ASTD International Conference in Orland the Brothers had a chance to play at Universal Studios. The conference reserved most of the park and there was basically no wait on Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, and other rides. Awesome!

Overall is was a fabulous year and we look forward to 2012!

The new year started out right with a company “team building” activity. Nothing is better than laser tag at 10 in the morning on a weekday when you can have the entire place to yourself.

We were able to learn many things that all brothers should learn. For example, you are not allowed to hit, no running, no fowl language, no climbing over wall, and no crying.

The final results:

• Overall Points Winner – Brother Andrew
• Overall Accuracy Winner – Brother Shawn
• Last Place – Brother Justin (He won the golf challenge last year. Sorry…can’t win everything.)

If you’re ever in Salt Lake City and bored on a day when you should be working…give us a call…we’ll take you laser tagging.

Every year our local Chamber of Commerce hosts a ski event at Sundance Ski Resort in Utah. As expected, we had a great day of skiing.

Special Awards:

• Best ski outfit: Brother Andrew with his purple pants
• Meanest skier: Brother Shawn spraying everyone with snow when they crash
• Best looking snow hat: Brother Justin
• All around best skier: Sister Kim
• Most frozen: Sister Sharlynn

Nothing! It was just a long week and we wanted to get away and relax

This weekend Brother Andrew and Sister Sharlynn ran the Dirty Dash 10k race in Soldier Hollow Utah. In its first year in Utah they had 5,000 people participate.

Throughout the race there were various obstacles such as:

• start by running up a muddy hill
• huge bails of hay to climb over
• snow maker to run against
• tunnels to crawl through
• walls to scale
• marsh lands to traverse
• slippery slides
• and a huge mud pit/bog to crawl through

The race was TONS of fun and I can’t remember ever being that dirty. At the very end our whole team stood on the top of a dirt hill and belly-flopped or cannon-balled into the huge mud pit. My word of advice … don’t forget to close your eyes and mouth when jumping into a mud pit.

Now it’s Monday…time to get back to work. I’m sure I have some eLearning to build.

Every so often you just need to get out. We eLearning Brothers are terrible golfers. So, in the spirit of “learning” we thought we’d go hit a few buckets of balls. (it was also a beautiful day outside and we wanted to get out.)

Results of the “Who can hit the ball near the flag competition”:

#1: Justin
#2: Andrew
#3: Shawn (that is also last place)

Easy to customize eLearning golf game.

The first team eLB marathon is complete! Sister Kim and I ran our fastest marathons ever! (ok…it was also our first marathon ever) The St George Marathon was 10/3 in St George Utah and the race went through the beautiful Snow Canyon area.

I (Brother Andrew) was only 5 1/2 weeks out from my collarbone surgery and was out of training for about 3 weeks. So needless to say my body was not in the best shape. I don’t think that the medicine, trauma, lack of sleep, and plate/screws helped either. My goal was to come in under 4 hours and to not walk. I was able to do it! (3:53 and no walking). I would love to do it again but I’m not sure when yet. The biggest thing that I learned it that I LOVE icy-hot. They had icy-hot stations every few miles. It feels really nice on aching legs

Sister Kim did a great job as well. This is her first shot at running. She started to really feel it at about mile 20 and had to “gut it out” the rest of the way. Her husband (Brother Shawn) went out to see/encourage her during the last stretch. Sister Kim was surrounded by her 4 daughters as she crossed the finish line.

This was a great experience and we’ll remember it forever!

As some of you know Team eLB is sponsoring 2 runners in the St George Marathon this year (Brother Andrew and Sister Kim…Shawn’s wife). After many months of training I (Brother Andrew) may not be able to attempt my first marathon.

About 2 weeks ago I went mountain biking up Big Cottonwood canyon on the Wasatch Crest trail. After 2 flat tires and climbing Puke Hill (earning my “downhill time”) I ended up crashing and bringing my summer to a grinding halt. I was going a little fast down a long single track when I hit a slight jump and came down on the side wall of the trail. I came flying off the bike and sliding head first for what seemed forever. When I got up everything seemed fine except that my shoulder burned. When I touched my shoulder I immediately felt my broken collar bone. I was in shock. I’ve crashed many times and never broken anything.

So for the next 2 hours I walked 4 miles down the mountain back to the car. My neighbor Jake had the great honor of trying to drag our bikes down the single track trail. He even got a bug out of my eye around mile 2 and got to drive me down the canyon to the hospital.

Finally after making it to the hospital I got some numbing shots and got to see the first x-rays. The bone was snapped in 2 places and the doc said that it would be about 5-6 weeks to heal. The marathon was 6 weeks from that date.

I few days later I went in for surgery and got a nice 3″-4″ titanium plate and 7 screws to hold it all together. Good thing we had already hit our medical deductible with the baby earlier this year. (so the surgery was free)

So, I’ve been out of the office for 2 weeks now and am hoping to be back on Tues. Things are starting to heal slowing but I haven’t been able to train for awhile now. There’s about a 50/50 chance that I’ll be ready by Oct 3rd. Even if my shoulder starts feeling fine I don’t know if it’ll make 26.2 miles. I guess I’ll soon find out. Stay tuned…

PS…in case you were wondering about my bike…it’s fine, nothing broken. I guess in the end that’s what’s really important

Well, with just over a month left before the St. George Marathon, team eLB is hard at work.

Sister Kim ran her first road race on July 24th. Every year Salt Lake City has the Deseret News 10k on Pioneer Day. She did great and dropped her average mile pace by about 2 minutes!

I (Brother Andrew) did 14 miles on Saturday evening and am now starting to understand how far 26.2 miles really is. My legs where pretty beat when I was done. (humm…I have to basically go double that for the marathon…that seems crazy!) Back in June I also tried my first sprint Triathlon and realized why I run instead of swim. I was the last person out of the pool. Maybe after the marathon I’ll learn how to be a better swimmer.

Well…stay tuned. Marathon coming Oct 3rd!

Track our progress.

Often times some of the best ideas come when we’re out enjoying life. This was true for this trip. Andrew and I needed to get out and clear our heads… so of course we opted for a company retreat. We decided to head a few hours south to Moab. Did a little camping, biking and jeeping. We biked the world famous Slick Rock Trail, jeeped up the Baby’s Lions Back and then hiked around a few arches. All in all an awesome trip!