Member Spotlight – Brian Bachor

Brian Bachor

Have you lived or traveled in a foreign country?

Lots!

What does your life outside of sport life look like?

I try to spend as much of my free time as possible reading and hanging out with my amazing wife (who conveniently works as a physical therapist) and dog (who is still struggling to find work). I also listen to a lot of audio history courses and have a general life goal of learning as many useless facts as possible and getting on Jeopardy! (I see Jeopardy! as the Kona of being a loser). I am currently reading a bio of every U.S. president, in sequence (to be followed by a bio of every First Lady). You haven’t lived until you’ve read about the life and times of James K. Polk. #fascinating!

Have you ever faced any obstacles in your life/career/fitness journey and what did you do to get over them?

I hit a point in 2014 where I was taking the sport wayyyy to seriously and made the mistake of replacing my then-coach with a new coach who ended up running me into the ground. I overtrained myself to the point where it was adversely affecting not only my training and racing performance, but everything else in life too. I eventually came to the obvious realization that this is something I’m supposed to do for fun, so if I’m not enjoying it, there is no reason to do it. At the end of the day, whether you’re trying to finish your first sprint triathlon or trying to qualify for Kona, you’re doing this because you want to and no one is ever going to remember or care what your time was except for you. Since then, I have wisely returned to my old coach with a healthier perspective and have been getting the best results of my life. If you want to grow in the sport you have to find new ways to push yourself, but it’s important to always remember that even an Ironman is just a triathlon, not a space shuttle launch!