Team Ooyala Runs 200 Miles, Learns Valuable Life Lessons

Like many in Silicon Valley, we at Ooyala spend most of our waking hours in front of a computer screen. Innovative solutions -- like mobile video SDKs and algorithmic content recommendation engines -- don't build themselves, after all.

We do manage to escape the office on occassion, however. 

Such was the case last weekend, when a group of us headed south to tackle Ragnar Southern California, a 203-mile relay race between Huntington Beach and San Diego. Picture 12 dudes piled into two vans. Picture non-stop running. Picture Sean Knapp, Ooyala's CTO, singing along to "Welcome to the Jungle" at the top of his lungs somewhere between Carlsbad and Solana Beach. You get the idea...

As with any group undertaking, we learned a number of important life lessons:

• Sean should never be allowed to sing Karaoke
• Cheddar Goldfish are the world's greatest energy food
• There's no "i" in "team," but there is in "aspirin," "ice," and "pizza"
• Contrary to what you might think, spending 20+ straight hours with co-workers can actually be a blast

It was an incredible journey. And despite having some decidedly slow runners on the team (e.g., yours truly) we somehow managed to place second, with an average pace of 6:24. Not bad for a bunch of desk jockeys, right?

(And in case you were wondering, yes, my legs are still sore.)