SHUHEI MATSUO
Assistant Sports Editor
There are two main types of sports journalists. There are those who started their careers as reporters but don’t really play sports, and those who were once professional athletes and came into the media world after retiring.
But there is a third, more rare, sports journalism type as well. There are those who report and compete at the same time in their career, which is the coolest kind of all. For example, Paul Azinger and Nick Faldo compete on the PGA Tour but often commentate as well. But they are golfers, so that should not be difficult.
Since I declared journalism as my major during my freshman year, I have always wanted to be a sports journalist who actually competes in athletic events, or what I call the ultimate sports journalist. So people can’t tell me things like, “You are not an athlete, just a journalist. What do you know about being an athlete?” Or, “You don’t know how to write. Stick with your sport.”
Don’t get me wrong. I have competed in a few golf tournaments since I came to college, so I do play a competitive sport. But as you may think, golf is not a very athletic sport.
So for this spring break, I decided to do the ultimate form of athletics: triathlon.
On March 11, I did my first triathlon at the UCLA Reversed-Order IronBruin Triathlon with my roommate, junior Greg Goble.
Greg and I had been talking about doing a triathlon since the end of the fall semester. So we signed up for this one when we came back from the Christmas break. I began training for this as soon as I got home in Japan during the winter break. Since biking can be really dangerous in Japanese cities, where streets are extremely narrow, I focused on running.
Running has always been a big part of my life, and I was a competitive runner from elementary school through high school. But running became somewhat boring to me because that was the only form of cardiovascular exercise I knew back then. So I stopped running regularly after finishing the cross country season during my senior year in high school.
I’m not a great swimmer but used to swim competitively in elementary school. But Greg has been a swimmer for a long time, and I knew he was going to kill me in swimming.
Since both of us did not have much experience in biking, we had no idea who had the advantage in this category. But we both agreed to ride our mountain bikes, which usually go slower than road bikes on asphalt roads.
Because biking was the longest part, I suspected it would be the most important section of all three and spent much time on it.
A few days before the race, I drove down to San Diego with my bike to get a few biking tips from my friend Johnny, who is a long-time road biker. After getting slick tires, I came back up to Malibu and waited for the race.
Greg returned to Malibu from spring break March 9, a day and a half before the race. But what he didn’t tell me was that he brought his dad’s road bike, not a mountain bike. Now that I had to compete against a road bike, it was a whole different story – I knew it was going to be a close race.
The game was on. I really wanted to beat him, and I was going to do it with my mountain bike.
Sunday, March 11 shortly after 7 a.m., the race began. And the rest was history.
I ended up beating Greg in the 4-mile-run-10-mile-bike-400-meter-swim race by about 16 minutes. The highlight of our battle, in my opinion, was that my mountain bike went faster than his road bike.
Even though I did not bet anything with Greg for this race, I was very pleased that we both finished the race. I mean, I knew I wanted to do a triathlon sometime in my life, but I never thought I was going to do it this early.
Now that I have completed a triathlon, I want to do an Ironman triathlon (2.4 miles swimming, 112 miles biking and 26 miles running) before I die. That means I first have to do a marathon, which will be my next feat.
To be honest, I’m getting a bit addicted to the triathlon lately. In fact, I am doing another one with in San Diego on April 4. For this one, I am competing with my buddy Johnny, who is a good biker. It will be a fun race.
Actually, I highly recommend signing up for a triathlon because training for it will get you in shape and make you feel great. Some people believe they will not have time to train, but there are ways to make time.
Ever since I began training for the triathlon, my life has been delightful. Now, I exercise more often, eat more nutritiously, sleep better and never get sick.
But most importantly, I can now start calling myself an ultimate sports journalist.
03-22-2007
