Name: Russell Baumann

Age: 42

Personal: I grew up in Knoxville, TN until the age of 12… lived in Africa until 18… earned a Bachelor of Architecture from The University of Tennessee… have worked in Knoxville, Nashville and now work in Duluth, Georgia as a registered architect.

I’m very laid back and enjoy music, photography and grilling out!

Athletic experience/accomplishments: My first sport was baseball but the move to Africa ended that. Rugby became my favorite sport overseas and I still follow it to this day. After college I used to run about 18 miles a week to be able to run 10k races. Then, as fate would have it, I started playing rugby again in my 30′s… hmmm, that was fun but hard to work the full-time job with the injuries that come with the sport… so, Ultimate Frisbee became my favorite… I love to sprint and Ultimate was perfect! Upon moving to Atlanta in 2006, I pretty much fell out of sport altogether until the Winter of 2009.

I made a deliberate decision to start swimming as a way to DO something with my body. Gaining confidence with swimming led me to consider and embrace training for a triathlon.

March 20th would find me on Parris Island to compete in the MCRD Triathlon. This race pretty much hooked me on Triathlon as a sport and I had a blast!

2010 Goals: I’m very deliberate in setting goals and following through with them. My goal for 2010 is to compete exclusively in Sprint Triathlons so as to become familiar/comfortable with this new sport. I have not ruled out an end of season Olympic Distance Triathlon but haven’t committed either.

My goal for 2011 is to compete in Olympic Distance Triathlons with an end of season Half Ironman.

I dream of finishing an Iron-man. It’s the Mt. Everest of triathlon and something I really want!

Inspiration: The Iron-man competition… Starting and finishing a challenge… Being part of something exclusive… People who are truly enthusiastic about triathlon like Chrissie Wellington & Amy Kloner (yeah, they smile when they talk about it).