Athlo Blog

Last week I finished the Escape from Alcatraz (EFA) Triathlon in San Francisco, which was a flat out awesome race.  Google it and you’ll see what I’m talking about.  EFA is roughly an Olympic distance triathlon (1.5mi swim, 18mi bike, 8mi run), with a 1/2mi run between the swim and the bike, and an uneven, log-based, 400-stair climb at mile 5 during the run (a.k.a. ‘the sandladder’).  This was easily my most enjoyable tri because the distance and course layout is challenging yet it doesn’t wreck your body for several days like longer events do and nutrition management is not a huge focus.

The only 3 downsides to the race I would say are 1) unless you’re a pro you have to enter a lottery to get a spot, 2) if you get a spot the race is rather expensive ($350) due to race logistics, i.e., a ferry out to the rock, and 3) you have to be ready to board a bus to the ferry two hours before the race begins.  All 3 are totally worth it, once.  I fortunately have the bike and run courses in my backyard being an SF resident so I may give other bidders better odds and forgo the lottery next year.

As an avid athlete, I’m constantly looking for new challenges, to try new sports, and meet and learn from new people.  Likewise, I enjoy sharing my experiences with others such that it makes them more intrigued or excited about sports and fitness (hence why I believe in Athlo).  Afterward at the event exposition, which was filled with fitness gear and service vendors, I noticed an air of excitement among the spectators.  I heard people ranting numerous times about how they would force more fitness activities into their lifestyles.  This is one of my visions for Athlo - to provide that same motivation you get on race day every day.

If you have any questions about EFA or are interested in how the Athlo project will get more involved at community events, please comment to this blog.

Each member of Athlo brings his own strengths to this multi-sport team.

Mark McBride: CEO and development lead for web applications.  2001 West Point graduate with a B.S. in Computer Science.  Experienced visionary determined to move beyond current on-line athletic boundaries and innovate new solutions.

• stays current on best system practices through local San Francisco developer social networks
• designed and launched several web applications using the Ruby on Rails framework
• earned bronze star in Iraq leading a 65-man digital communications and data networking platoon
• graduated first in his major and recipient of numerous academic awards

• Avid triathlete, skier, mountaineer, mountain biker
• Runs 15 miles to work once a week
• Platoon Leader for 40-man artillery platoon in Iraq
• Earned Bronze Star in Iraq

John Nadzam: Athlo lead for feature design and development and finance. 2003 University of Michigan graduate with a B.S. in Engineering.  ACHA collegiate hockey team captain.   Passionate about teamwork and helping others achieve their goals.

• Active with triathlons, hockey, and a variety of other sports and races
• Professional experience in teaching, engineering, and supply chain management
• Wide variety of participation in sports and non-sports related volunteering and fund raising

We posted some significant, yet seamless, updates to the form that allows you to add new workouts.  Now when you add a workout, you have a few new options:

1. Add exercises.  This is a significant enhancement that let’s you add multiple exercises to a single workout.  For example, if you’re workout consists of a warm-up, run, and cool-down, then log these as three separate exercises within the same workout.  Each exercise has a set of relevant quantifiers that let you track things like your pace, time, distance, etc.  In time, these quantifiers will be the basis of a great deal of insight into your performance.
2. Auto-save.  Never worry about clicking that save button again.  As you type in the workout/exercise form, your data is saved automatically.  Just open, edit, and close … one less step.  That’s how we try to approach most everything on the site: clean and simple.
3. Add notes, or not.  In every workout there is an “add notes” link.  If you have some extra text you’d like to add to your workout, this is the place for it.  If not, it remains hidden out of sight for a cleaner form.
4. Start Time of Day.  There is no requirement to use this when creating workouts, however it will be an important feature when group workout scheduling goes live.  We’re scaling the site for bigger and better things so be sure to check back time and again for what Athlo can do for your athletic lifestyle.

In other news, we’ve been working hard on getting one of the exciting features ready to lauch: training plan generation.  We’ll keep you posted on the development, but so far it’s coming together quite nicely.