Among the many hard-working employees at Document Systems, Inc. ("DSI") are some super athletes who use their spare time to train in their respective sport and compete at a high level. Following is a summary of the latest achievements of four (4) of DSI's super athletes.

Jeremy Boyd, DSI's IT Manager, has been primarily focused on training hard for this coming fall. He has two 50-mile running events coming up, back to back. The first is the Dick Collins Fire Trails 50 on October 7, 2006, and the other is the Helen Klein 50 Mile Classic on November 4, 2006. These events will be followed up with the Borax Marathon in Death Valley on December 2, 2006.

To help train for these events, Jeremy started biking to work 1 to 2 days per week beginning in late May. The distance is 17 miles each way and takes about one hour. Jeremy added biking to his existing training regimen of running an average of 30 to 50 miles per week.

Over Labor Day weekend, Jeremy participated in the annual Run to the Top event, which is a race to the top of Mount Baldy (elevation 10,064 ft.) from the Baldy ski area parking lot at 6,000 ft. The run is approximately 8 miles on fire access roads and narrow hiking trails. Even though it is short (compared to 50 miles), the fact that it is up hill the entire way and runners have to contend with the thinner air at the higher altitudes made it an ideal training run for Jeremy. Rather than resting up for the run, Jeremy continued his normal training and ran 20+ miles in the preceding 2 days. As Jeremy finished 9.5 minutes faster than last year, he thinks the biking has paid off. He finished in 1:50:10 and was 14th place in his age division, placing 167 out of 533 overall.

Renee Cleary, one of DSI's Assistant General Counsel, became the #1-rated AA volleyball player in July, 2006 and then moved up as the #29-ranked AAA player in the California Beach Volleyball Association (CBVA), an organization that has over 10,000 members. Renee has finished as high as 35th on the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour.

Jim Gabriel, a software developer with DSI, took his first mountain bike ride in 1999 at Whiting Ranch in Orange County with Jim Adrig, DSI's software architect. He had such a blast that he purchased a mountain bike of his own soon afterwards.

Jim started riding after work and met a lot of great people who encouraged him to race. He thought, "What the heck," and gave it a try. Jim recalls thinking during his first race in the beginner class, "What did I get myself into? This is awful! I can't breathe! I'm going to die! I don't think I'm cut out for this! I should quit NOW! I need CPR!"

Well, Jim persevered and finished that first race as well as the next 100 or so races he entered. Jim says he always had fun (mostly afterwards) even though he, at first, felt that he never worked so hard to finish so poorly. People would ask him, "How did you do?" Instead of saying "Oh...second from last", Jim would just say that he had fun. Jim also noticed the people that finished in front of him were just having more fun; and he wanted some of that!

So, Jim kept riding and with each race he entered, it never got easier and the suffering never eased; he just got faster. In 2005, after almost 5 years of racing, he finally accomplished his goal by winning the California State Championship in the Endurance Expert Singlespeed division. (Jim only used one gear on the bike to make it more challenging). Those races were some of the toughest with the shorter races lasting 3 hours and the longest being 10 1/2 hours, covering 40 to 90 miles in the mountains.

One of the highlight races last year was being able to race side by side with the pros in Monterey, CA. There were 100 racers in Jim's class, which was huge. He finished and placed in the middle of the pack; Jim's goal was just not to finish last.

This year, Jim decided to retire from competitive racing. It took a lot of time training and dedication that Jim just did not care to continue. Instead, Jim now enjoys long, easy rides with his wife (she won her division in 2004 and also retired from racing). They continue to ride about 25 miles almost every weekday morning, but at a leisurely pace. Although they miss the racing friends they made over the years, they definitely don't miss the hard training. Weekends usually are taken up with long rides from their house in Fontana. They'll ride down to Huntington Beach, Pasadena and occasionally to San Diego.

Jim said that biking now is back to pure fun, just as when he was a kid. All the wiser after all that biking and training, Jim says, "Like all things in life, it's important to enjoy the activity if you're ever going to excel at it or incorporate it into a lifestyle. I think I'll be biking for life!"

After racing a few events in the spring, including an 18th place finish at the Big Sur Marathon,
Colin MacDiarmid, DSI's web developer, switched gears and began focusing on multisport. In Colin's case, multisport is either a triathlon or adventure racing. This summer proved to be a good season to race with a team, and after a few successful adventure races and one not so successful (a 24-hour race in 105 degree heat), Colin's teammates and he were able to qualify to race in the 2006 USARA (United States Adventure Racing Association) Adventure Race National Championships in Santa Barbara, CA.

According to Colin, adventure racing is trying because the races can be quite lengthy. The entire team is required to travel from point A to B together, navigating via a topography map with a series of checkpoints to hit along the way. This past September 9, Colin raced with a team from Pioneertown to Big Bear Lake in Southern CA. The total distance traveled was 100+ miles by foot, mountain bike and kayak. Colin and his team managed to squeak in a 3rd place finish, even after a few navigation mistakes, in 31 hours.

Colin's primary focus this summer was training for the Superfrog Triathlon, a half ironman distance race, that took place on the weekend following the adventure race, on September 16, 2006. This was a nice change for Colin after racing so long the weekend before. The race, held at the U.S. Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado, CA, provided its own challenges as approximately 5 miles of the 13-mile run was on soft sand!

Colin is currently training for his next "A" race, which will be Ironman AZ, in Tempe, AZ. After this race, Colin plans to focus primarily on running, his first love. But for now, Colin enjoys the change of pace and the challenge of fitting in so many workouts.

Congratulations to all of DSI's super athletes on all of their great achievements this past summer!