Video and profiles courtesy of Steven Munatones – http://www.openwatersource.com/.
Bruckner Chase is a husband, athlete, coach, speaker and writer. His endurance career began in the early 80’s, and he competed his first Ironman distance triathlon in 1985 at the age of 19. Those early forays into endorphin nirvana led to a life long passion for discovering his own potential while encourage others to discover their own.
Bruckner holds a degree in Exercise Science from Rice University and has been a personal trainer and swim coach at the age group, high school and Masters levels. As an ocean lifeguard swim instructor, Bruckner works with South Jersey beach patrols as well as Coast Guard rescue swimmers. In an effort to raise the Ocean Consciousness of the Ocean City community, Bruckner and his wife Michelle founded the Ocean City Swim Club to create opportunities for others to discover a place in the ocean while at the same time gaining an understanding of how our lives on land are intimately connected to the seas.
In three decades of endurance pursuits, Bruckner has competed as a professional triathlete and an ultra-distance runner even finishing the Vermont 100 mile endurance run in 1998. More recently Bruckner has redirected his endurance pursuits to the ocean as a waterman and marathon swimmer.
As committed as he is to discovering his own potential in the water, Bruckner is more passionate about raising awareness of the impact we all have on the oceans. Through endurance pursuits, writing and speaking Bruckner is committed to Changing How We Feel and Think About the Oceans.
About Steven Munatones
Steven Munatones has served as the USA Swimming National Open Water Swimming Team coach at the 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007 World Swimming Championships and 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010 national team camps.
He has written several cover stories for Swimming World Magazine, U.S. Masters Swimming SWIMMER Magazine and Competitor Magazine. He is an International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame inductee and board member. He created and manages the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame website.
He is a member of the FINA Technical Open Water Swimming Committee and USA Swimming Open Water Swimming Committee where he drafted many of the rules, guidelines, protocols and regulations currently used in the sport. He was the 1982 World Long Distance Swimming Champion (25K in Lake Windermere, England), did five unprecedented solo swims over 30K in Asia and several professional marathon swims in Canada, Mexico and Atlantic City.
He was the NBC Olympics’ Commentator for the 2008 Olympic 10K Marathon Swim in Beijing. He created the Open Water Swimming Dictionary, World’s Top 100 Open Water Swims, America’s Top 50 Open Water Swims, the World Open Water Swimming Man of the Year, the World Open Water Swimming Woman of the Year, the World Open Water Swimming Performance of the Year, Open Water Wednesday, the Pyramid of Open Water Success, Ocean’s Seven and the Open Water Almanac.
He has prepared open water swimming materials used by NBC, USA Swimming, Beijing Olympic Committee, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, National Public Radio and National Geographic Magazine.
He serves as the Technical Delegate for the Special Olympics and 2011 World Games and as an adviser to race directors in the USA, from California to New York, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Greece, Mexico and Japan.
He is a member of the board of directors of Swim Free and was the race director for the Waikiki Roughwater Swim, USA Swimming National Open Water Swimming Championships, the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships 10K and the Distance Swim Challenge.
He wrote the script for Out of the Box, USA Swimming’s 90-minute educational DVD on open water swimming and The Tactics and Techniques of Open Water Swimmers.
He has kayaked, paddled, escorted and coached several swimmers in numerous channels and lakes around the world including the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Caribbean Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Sea of Japan, South Pacific and the Hawaiian Islands.
He created The Daily News of Open Water Swimming, the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame website, 10Kswim, Virtual Swim, Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming, Water Polo Hair and SwiMetrics.
He created and hosted the first Global Open Water Swimming Conference.
He is a contributing writer to The Science of Swimming and is an adviser to the American Swimming Coaches Association’s Journal of Swimming Research.
He wrote Open Water Swimming, a comprehensive tome on open water swimming that will be published in 2011 by Human Kinetics. He received the Irving Davids / Captain Roger Wheeler Award from the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
He was born and raised in Southern California and currently resides in Huntington Beach, California where he coaches, researches, writes and promotes open water swimming and water polo.