JESSE: Was your coach having you train with power or just total RPE like, just go out-- BRYFUL SUN: At the beginning, I didn't have a coach at Georgia Tech. So, there's Cody elder, he was kind of a standalone coach that he helped the team as a whole and he took on individual athletes who wanted to put themselves to the next level that were on the club because it was like, it's it's not a club ,it's not a NCAA, like sanctions, like sponsored or funded sport through the university. So, like, we didn't really have the money to just hire a full-time coach like some colleges do. But Cody helped us out a lot. And he actually coached me for a little bit and got me training to the next level. And yes, after I got a coach, I got a power meter. I had a heart rate monitor, but obviously did not want to drop money on a power meter my first year. JESSE: Yeah, they come down, but they're still pretty expensive. BRYFUL SUN: Yeah, yeah. And just when I was, I guess a sophomore, junior in Scott High School, the thought of dropping $600 on a metal pedal was like, why would I do that? Like I would never do that. And then my coach, eventually convinced me I was like, look, this is how I get to tell, like, how well your progress is, how well you're progressing. You know, so I eventually bit the void and drop the money on a pair but yeah, I've been training with it ever since. It's just, so on my race ? 1:42>, I actually have nothing but power and distance on it. I don’t have anything else, no speed, nothing. I just have power per three seconds and then on my second data screen, I have lap power. That's it. Like that's all I train with. JESSE: I mean, that's all that really matters. Like, I have - GPS like head unit for my bike and I wish I could, maybe I can and I’m just too dumb, but I wish I could customize the screen. So, I could just set up like, all I want is power and time or like what are the interval is but I have to have like, the screen or it's like power and speed and cadence. And it's like, there's too much on the screen, like all I want to know, is what my power is, and how long I've gone. Like that's all that matters because ultimately, like say, if I want to hit 300 watts for an interval, doesn't matter whether I'm going uphill or downhill or on a flat, am I hitting 300 watts? That's the only question that has to be answered. I'm with you there. BRYFUL SUN: Exactly. Especially for triathlons, you know, it's so important to maintain that consistent power especially when you're considering that you have to run afterwards. And putting some and not absolutely destroying yourself on a hill, that's just the important to keep track of. So, I think if you don't, if you don't have a power meter, you can absolutely get stuff done. You know heart rate is still a great measure for anyone who's watching this and doesn't want to buy power meter, you absolutely do not have to. It's just a great tool for determining over a course of time, whether your power has increased, if you're more efficient on the bike, and it's just that small benefit where you can see how efficient you're being. But for me, it's become part of my daily biking just routine, just looking at my power and stuff. JESSE: Yeah. So, I'm kind of curious, like, Chris had his reasons. And obviously, I have my own genetic limitations, at least I think that's what it is. Given how competitive you are, did you ever have or do you have any aspirations of racing in the pro field, regardless of making a living from it, but just taking that step to the next level? BRYFUL SUN: Yeah, I'll say, yes, I do. I respect Chris so much because he wants to be, he's always said, I didn't take my pro card because I want to be able to compete at the top level, and not just say, have the figure, I'm a pro. Because there's some kind of, there's things that you give up being a pro athlete as well. And I'm kind of in the same book like, I'm very competitive, but most of that competitiveness is for myself. I could really care less if other people think I'm a pro or not. If I have that, or if I can become a pro and still compete at that high level and be there up with the top guys, that's what matters to me even if I can podium in some of those races, and that's the goal for me is just to be at the top level of the sport for myself, you know, because that is really important to me. And that's definitely a future aspiration. There's a lot of work that's going to have to be put into that especially with a full time job. Is it realistic? I think it is kind of realistic. If I keep on with this structure, and put in the pool smart yardage, not just garbage yardage. And most importantly, for me, at this point, not getting injured, especially for the running. Every time I have some sort of injury on the run, I'm out for two months and my seasons done basically, you don't run for more than a couple weeks in my book, like your fitness is through. So, it's different for like cycling because you can just put the miles in and get it right back, swimming even worse. Like if you're out of the pool in my opinion for two weeks, you're done. Like, I mean your fitness is so just gone from not swimming. But if I could stay uninjured, and slightly bump up the volume as I get better, but not to a point where I'm sacrificing my own personal life outside of sport. Obviously at this moment, being a pro athlete is an aspiration, but I don't want it to jeopardize my career. Because my career, I've made the decision after college that I wasn't going to make a living off of sports. You know, it was a decently tough decision but I had to be realistic with myself both from genetic and physical and just time limitations, there wasn't going to happen. So, at this point being a pro triathlete is something that I definitely want to do for my own personal gratification. But yes. JESSE: Have you raced one of those elite development races, do you know what I’m talking about? BRYFUL SUN: Yeah, I've only done one draft legal event, which is really disappointing because I loved it and I did one at collegiate nationals. But no, I haven't done-- I know what the EDR races are. My coach actually wanted to get me into them, Cody -. He wanted me to get into it but it kind of came at a bad time when I was thinking about graduate-- well, I was graduating, and I didn't know where I would be and like I didn't know what job-- I didn't have a job at the time upon graduation. And my mind was just in different places. You know, I was kind of a mess. Like I was traveling internationally, I was trying to find a job. And my mind wasn't on sports for that one specific block of time and I guess I didn't have the chance to do any of them. JESSE: So under 25, you can go, just go and then over 25, you need an invitation. But if you're interested, I can probably help you ?? 8:06> that. At least for now I know the lady that's in charge of getting people in even though she's going to be leaving that position. But yeah, I mean, even if you're-- I don't know whether you're interested in going draft legal, whether you want to go long course. I think the draft legal event is just, it's just a ton of fun. Like you don't get your pro at the event, like racing draft legal is so much more fun to me, then always doing solo non draft, or what makes - or a long course, like, just because it's just like cross country, it's the same atmosphere, like when you're in a pack on the bike, or you're in your case, you would definitely be in a pack in the swim and then get with the good cyclists. And then it's a showdown at the end, who can run the other. So, I mean, if you have time - your schedule, absolutely recommend it just for the experience if nothing else. BRYFUL SUN: I mean I definitely am. If I have the chance, I would love to Like I said, I've only gotten to one draft legal race. I think it'd be interesting. So, yeah. JESSE: Yeah, I think they kind of change. So, Claremont is in March, every year. They used to have Detroit for a couple of years, they didn’t in August, they stopped doing that race because we couldn't get enough guys out there. But it seems like they'll try different ones every once in a while. So, we'll just keep that like on the radar. I don't want to run out of time, but I do want to get to your job what you do, so aerospace engineer, like what's your day like? What what are you actually working on? BRYFUL SUN: Yeah, so I work at General Atomics. General Atomics has a subsidiary company called General Atomics aeronautical which is obviously their aircraft drone division of General Atomics, that's what I work at. It's located here in San Diego, California, where I am, their headquarters, more specifically Poway, which is northeast San Diego. But I work as Avionic Systems Engineer for the US Army. So, basically, I'm working on hardware, and requirements. So, avionics is basically for those that I'm talking common sense to, just don't listen. But for those who don't know, avionics is the electrical component tree that goes into the cockpit, the whole avionic suite, a electronic suite, and as far as aerodynamics goes, fly by wire navigation, all of that is under the umbrella of avionics and aircraft. So, I'm working on as a systems engineer, my job is basically to provide requirements for software engineers, flight test engineer, so that they can more effectively organize their code and test qualifications effectively. And I basically, right, I’ll create block diagrams, and overall avionics component tree and wiring schematics for the overall system, so that everybody in the company who is working on that aircraft has a general picture of what's going on. Additionally, I’ll write, con ops diagrams which are concept of operation diagrams. So, in order to, I spent a lot of time with the actual consumer itself, in my case, being the US Army. So, in order for them to purchase our product we have to fetch new ideas to them, pitch new ideas to them. And my job, or part of it is to write a con ops concepts of operations, which is basically, here's what this new product is and I’ll say it's a - new GPS navigation system. How is it applicable? Here's a diagram that shows how it's going to be applied in our aircraft and what it is going to do and the battlefield for you guys, the US Army. And if they like it, they'll fund us. And then we can continue the development of the product. So, I work there. We have a nine 80 schedule. So, work there Monday through Friday, every other Friday off, like this one, and I enjoy it, I really do enjoy it. It's a fun job. You know, I'm lucky to have a position. It's one of-- I'm working on this aircraft called the Gray Eagle, the ?? 12:47> Gray Eagle, and it's a US Army drone that's currently deployed throughout the Middle East at the moment. JESSE: Okay. See if I follw on it. I mean, it sounds like, it sounds like a really interesting job. And like, if that's your thing, like as an engineer, like, I mean, I'm always curious, like how people get kind of into that sub specialty. I mean, so you said you studied aerospace at Georgia Tech, right? BRYFUL SUN: Right. JESSE: I mean, how do you so, from there, I mean, you can go, you can go dozens of ways, you know, as far as like, everything that aerospace covers, like, did you have an interest in, I’ll call it systems design, but like what you do now, the coordination between all the teams, did you have an interest in that or was it a matter of this is what's available, ?? 13:42> Or like, how do you get to where you are? BRYFUL SUN: So, that's good question. Systems Engineering is usually designated to more senior engineers. And obviously, I'm the most junior engineer you can be. But systems engineers, definitely something that I wanted to do graduating college. I specifically applied for this job, to be honest, I didn't think I'd get it because I thought systems engineering was basically, like I said, limited to senior engineers. But it's systems engineering was very interesting to me because I like-- As much as I like working on the component tree, specific like design aspects of aircraft. Also, another interest of mine is coming up with strategic planning, and I like talking to people. So, systems engineering is the most people, I guess, I don't know, just talking to the consumer, you get a lot of that experience. And then and understanding the overall scope of the project as a whole, those things matter to me a lot when working on a project, for example, on our aircraft at the moment. And we had two years of studying that at Georgia Tech. My last two years, we had two systems engineering courses and they are-- I'd like to say that they were by far, two of my favorite courses that I studied. I thoroughly enjoyed working on the projects there just because you got to apply all of the knowledge that you had learned previously, all of those, the terrible thermodynamics, like fluid dynamics, all those annoying subjects. You actually got to put them to use and you didn't think why did I just fail all these exams to never use them again? But it applies everything together and I think systems engineer is the most-- some, it's definitely not for everyone. If you're super specific, if you like to know exactly how this wire and what voltage goes into the other wire, and how do you code this software for this specific part of their craft, it's not for you it's a broad engineering where you understand everything, so that you can more effectively convey it to other engineers and make sure they work efficiently and the consumer itself. So, those are some of the things I most like to do and that's why I picked the job. JESSE: So, I'm kind of curious, like, since you're, as far as I understand it, since you're coordinating between all these teams and the customer and everything, are you predominantly working on like, say, like, we're making a better widget? So, like, we’re making the GPS system more effective in X, Y & Z ways? Or do you also work on like, getting feedback from the army, in this case, in terms of like UI and UX, do you work on that stuff with them as well? BRYFUL SUN: Yeah. So, it's basically everything that is either complained or suggested to us and any aspect is what I'll be working on. So, something as simple as we don't-- the army being like, we don't like where this GPS system is placed, I will convey that write a new requirement, send it to flight test, see if that object can be placed there, or if it's completely not, okay, see, if software can recode for the new configuration or something, as even if software is like, no, this can't be done, or if they send something specific for me to convey to the army, then I'll also be the middleman to do that. Basically, any communication that goes from the higher ups, basically the army all the way to the low level. Low level not being like bad, low level being specific, like the software guys. I’m basically communicating everything between them. And anything that I can do in an engineering sense, I will perform and then send to its respective department to ensure that it can be applied to the system. JESSE: Okay. Okay. I think I have to be a little mindful of your time. So, you're not late for your swim. You’ve seen a couple episodes, we can probably go on for another half hour. Like, I've got things I didn't get to, but I maybe have to have you on for another day. So, as I asked everybody, like you've seen the episode, so I'm going to ask you. This is an encompassing question, because everybody eats. So, it's always interesting like what everybody says. If you can only choose one food to eat for recovery for the rest of your life, what do you choose? BRYFUL SUN: My gosh. Okay, man, that's a hard one. It's for recovery. I’d just say peanut butter. Man, I love peanut butter. ?? 18:52> JESSE: Straight, like, dip your finger in the jar...? BRYFUL SUN: You know what, like, I'll just go for it. You know, if it was a food where I could like, add stuff to it, I'd say something else. But if it's just one ingredient-- JESSE: It can be anything. I mean like, I don't know if you know Todd, he said peanut and butter jelly. Or like Chris likes tacos. So, I mean, you could add... BRYFUL SUN: Okay. So, I guess the answer is a little odd. I don't mean like, if I had to eat like a whole jar ?? 19:18> I just only eat peanut butter. Yeah. - I would probably go with-- Oh, man. You know, this is high school me coming back into play, but I’d just go for a pizza man, like combination pizza. You know, it's got protein, veggies, and a little bit of guilty pleasure food in there too. So, I'll take that. I know, I'll probably be extremely unhealthy, but I'll take it. JESSE: Yeah man, like you said, it's got all the components you need and it's delicious. I mean, what more can you ask for? All right, - if people want to find you, where can they do that; website, Instagram, any place? BRYFUL SUN: Yeah. So, I've got all that jazz. I've got Facebook, you find me my name Prideful Son. My Instagram handle, it's a little bit embarrassing, but it's called a BryBryFabulous. That’s B-R-Y B-R-Y Fabulous and just request me there and I'll be on LinkedIn. And yeah, that's about it. JESSE: Thanks for coming on today. BRYFUL SUN: Thanks, Jesse. Nice talking to you. Go to Part 1Go to Part 2
