FAST MASTERS: WHO'S IN THAT LANE? -- EPISODE 9: BEN THIEN

Who’s In That Lane? – Episode 9: Ben Thien

I joined FAST Masters in July 2023. I was never on a swim team before, so I have been swimming for10 months now. I did swim a little 20 years ago for a triathlon and joined FAST because I wanted a place to swim to train for another triathlon. FAST had the best time available, best price, and was the most convenient because it’s on the way to work. Now the triathlon is probably not going to happen because my feet are flat, and my ankle hurts too much to run. It turns out I really like swimming and now I am just swimming. Since I started swimming my back no longer hurts, I have been sitting up straight instead of slouching, and I lost so much belly fat that I had to buy new pants.  If I had known swimming would fix my back pain, I would have started swimming years ago.

I still don’t know what I am doing. Everything I do know about swimming I learned from our coaches Paul, Brian, and Keith. I have gotten a lot better since joining the group and I appreciate everyone’s patience. The hardest part about swimming is that I am cold in the morning! It’s so hard to just jump in and start swimming.

I am married to Jennifer who teaches math at Fullerton Union High School. We have two daughters: Anna (11) and Violet (14). Anna goes to Laguna Road Elementary. She used to swim at FAST but now does diving in Los Alamitos. Violet goes to Parks Junior High and is on the Level 7 team at Eric Will Gymnastics. We are all sports all the time. I don’t know how that happened as Jennifer and I were both unathletic growing up.

When not swimming I like to cook, and I do all the cooking at home. I try to make something new at least once a week. I think about food all the time and I have been constantly eating since I started swimming. I also enjoy video games. I have been playing a lot of Hell Divers 2 recently. I do a lot of mountain biking and I ride the Fullerton loop on my bike at least once a week. I run a little but can’t do much beyond 3 miles at a time because of my ankles.

I am from New Orleans and went to Texas A&M University for school. I got a PhD in Mechanical Engineering burning cow manure for energy, then did a post-doc in bioaerosol sampling. I moved to Fullerton when I got a job in Orange County. I work for SARA Inc. in Cypress making Detect & Avoid systems for drones. The system detects oncoming crewed aircraft so that drone operators can move out of the way to avoid a collision. The FAA will then let operators fly their drones beyond the visual range of a human pilot.

My swimming hopes for the future are to work on butterfly when it is warm enough to swim in my neighbor’s pool and swim the 100 Free under 1:25 at the FAST Masters meet July 14th. I also want to swim around the Huntington Beach pier this summer and maybe do one of the pier-to-pier swims, although I am not sure I won’t need to be fished out by the lifeguards. Long-term, I would like to get a qualifying time for USMS, but that will take years.