“Team-building exercises” used to mean holding hands and singing “Kumbaya.” Today, those exercises are a little more extreme.

Ask Kristen Olsen, general manager at Hollywood creative agency Troika.

The 38-year-old, already a long-distance runner, decided to up the ante last year and began to enter extreme races, where participants climb walls, drag weights and try to avoid barbed wire, and in some cases, electrical shocks.

She was hooked. Now she’s a regular at the events such as Tough Mudder and has traveled as far as Chicago to compete.

Her enthusiasm even rubbed off at the office. In April, she was joined by a Troika colleague on a nearly 200-mile, 27-hour relay footrace from Huntington Beach to San Diego, where each member of the six-person team took turns running while others tagged along in a van.

Olsen said the extreme events are great for bonding.

Her boss, Troika Chief Executive Dan Pappalardo, is a little concerned, though.

“(He) asks me what I’m doing this weekend … and are you going to come back in one piece,” she said, laughing.

Full Mantle

Most architects are thrilled to receive one award for projects they’ve completed. But husband and wife team Wade Killefer and Barbara Flammang of Killefer Flammang Architects in Santa Monica recently won an impressive seven awards within three days for projects their firm designed last year.

Earlier this month, the company received three Gold Nugget Awards from the Pacific Coast Builders Conference, two top prizes from the Los Angeles Business Council and two from the Westside Urban Forum.

“It was just coincidence but it was fun,” Killefer, 64, said. “It feels good. The fun part was the awards were for seven different buildings so there was no repeat and that’s a nice vindication for different kinds of projects.”

Among the company’s winning designs were the 74-room Hotel Wilshire on the Miracle Mile, the Bel Air Bar & Grill restaurant and adjoining office building, and private elementary school P.S. One in Santa Monica.

It was an impressive showing for the 30-person company, which has been designing buildings for nearly 40 years. So how did the pair celebrate the big wins?

“They have cocktails at these things so there was some celebrating,” Killefer said.

Staff reporters Jonathan Polakoff and Jacquelyn Ryan contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].