2020 Ironman Florida Champion * Simon Ward and Kat Matthews

In this week’s podcast, I’m joined by a young lady who I’m certain will have a very exciting future in triathlon.  Two years ago, Kat Matthews was a physiotherapist serving in the British Army and racing recreationally as a triathlete.  At the end of 2019, she entered and finished her first Ironman at Busselton, West Australia finishing fourth female overall in a time of 8:53. She signed a full-time contract with the BMC-Vifit triathlon team for 2020 and like just about everyone else, it stopped there as the whole world was interrupted by the COVID pandemic.

 

Of course, she didn't stop training and posted some impressive results in 2020 winning some of the virtual events which took place during the summer as well as National 100mile TT Champion and IM Tallinn 70.3 before victory at Outlaw X in September where she stormed to first place, beating a strong domestic field. The best was yet to come as she then went to Ironman Florida won in 8hrs40 and in the process claiming a slot for Kona in 2021. This is a fun conversation with an up and coming athlete who has a great future as we chat about:

• Signing with BMC and the long-term goals
• Dealing with being a 1st-year pro and COVID - did it cause anxiety, or did it make life easier?
• Differences in training from AG to pro, and the potential pitfalls
• PTO and what, if any, help they have provided
• Thoughts on PTO equal numbers and prize purses between female and male athletes at Daytona 
• The whole Florida experience - How WTC made it COVID safe, atmosphere, etc.
• Winning in Florida - the whole race
• What does the future hold?

To find out more about Kat, please go here to her website

https://www.katrinamatthewstri.com/

You can also follow her on 

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/katr_matthews

Twitter - https://twitter.com/Katr_Matthews

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/katrina.rye

 

We also talked about 

Kat’s racing team BMC-Vfit

Kat’s favourite book of recent times - Becoming - Michelle Obama

Recent article on the Tri247 website

Kat’s favourite song - Proud - Heather Small

To find out more about Simon’s SWAT programme, please click HERE 

Visit Simon's website for more information about his coaching programmes

Links to all of Simon's social media channels can be found here

For any questions please email Beth@TheTriathlonCoach.com