Surprisingly, I’m pretty happy about my 7th place age group finish at the Nautica Malibu Classic this past Sunday. No, it wasn’t a podium finish. Yea, for sure, I’m a little disappointed that 36 seconds separated me from a medal, but nevertheless, I am pleased. And so I celebrate my accomplishment and improvement over last year’s Malibu race.

By the numbers… Official time was 1:37:09. From last year, Swim was 1:09 faster, T1 was 0:27 faster, Bike was 0:25 faster, T2 was 0:02 faster, but Run was 0:12 slower. Oh, and I beat all the individual celebrities, except the top male celeb, who was a former professional NFL player.

Certainly, there were a couple of things I could have done better like maybe swim faster (I “stopped” to sight about three times – I could kick myself for that). Sure I could have fought harder in the end to keep my lead over 6th place, who re-passed me in the last 20 seconds of the race. Despite these two little hiccups in my race, I recognize my swimming has improved, but I definitely need to continue working hard at it to improve even more. Another plus is that I’ve consistently placed in the top 10 of my age group in these non-Ironman races. So in this field of 105 for my group, I’m right there so close that I can taste the metal of that medal.

What I really wanted to write about after Malibu is not so much about the race itself, but rather about this blog. A close friend from my UCLA days suggested I write on a more personal level:

Thought for you. You have been consistently posting your times for training. How about turning the corner and story telling? Pull the curtains back on your own experience going from an inactive to agressive triathlete? Just a thought. You write well and you have lots of life changing experience now.

A very interesting proposition, one that would definitely take up more of my limited time. I figure I would give it a try for a little bit now and then instead of my regular, mundane race reports. Here are a few topics I’ve thought about exploring:

• Why I don’t like exercise
• Why improvement is not good enough
• What drives me
• What motivates me to wake up at 4:00 am most days a week to jump in a pool or run (aka WTF is wrong with you?)
• How do I endure long hours of training or maybe a better question is why?
• Why suffer when you could be sleeping in

Would any of my readers find these topics even remotely interesting? That is, of course, assuming I have at least one reader other than myself.

Of course, there is the tried and true: “What? You lost how many pounds and now you are a triathlete?” Or “Huh? You used to look like a blob and now you have a hot middle-aged body?”

Okay, stop laughing.

Seriously though, I’m reluctant to write more about my former struggles with weight. For almost all my life, I was the fat guy. I don’t want to be known as the guy who used to be fat. Quite frankly, I don’t have patience for obese people. They are wasting their life away. And losing weight is not what drives me now in my triathlon pursuits. Losing weight is what exercise is for. And then once you lose the weight, you’re done with exercise. Not me, man. I still have dreams to go after, even at age 45. And exercise is not a part of those dreams. My dreams are realized through ambition, discipline, hard work, perseverance, endurance, and training.

So this has been a very strange race report. If there is anyone out there reading my blog, please take a moment to comment and let me know if I should write a little differently from time to time. I appreciate your feedback.

You might be reading this page as a former reader of whatsbruin.net, so welcome! And to my new readers, welcome to you too. I killed the old blog after five years. I got bored with it and just wasn’t writing anymore. Currently, development is in progress for my new site, which will chronicle my journey as an amateur triathlete.

I envisioned this new site as a spinoff of having to create a digital portfolio for my master’s degree in Educational Technology from San Diego State University. The portfolio and degree are scheduled to be finished in May, 2010. And so to prepare for that milestone, I decided to just rework my web presence and consolidate everything into one domain and one theme. So while this site will focus on endurance sports and triathlons, there will be some legacy remnants of a few of my interests such as photography and instructional design.

I hope to launch this site officially by the end of June.

Until then, I will be repopulating the News section (this blog) with some important articles I wrote on the IntoFitness section of whatsbruin.net.

Thanks for stopping by, and come visit again.