Matthew

Anyone Hiring Triathletes?

    I have picked my new job.  I am going to be a professional triathlete.  All I have to do is get out of bed, ride, run, swim, stretch, eat and sleep.  So that will be nice.  Of course, I have to get someone to pay me to do this.  No matter, I’ll figure out a way.  Of course, I’m very lucky right now.  I’m getting out of the army, so I’m still getting paid, but my time is very much my own, with the exception of one or two days a week.  The rest of the time I pretty much eat, sleep, and train.  Which is great, especially when the Tour of California is on and I can just get on the trainer and ride and suffer with (metaphysically at least) the greats of the sport.  There is no motivation like watching Levi’s AWESOME time trial effort whilst suffering through the last half hour of my trainer workout on my TT bike.  It made time on the trainer fly (no pun intended).  Of course, I can only workout so many hours a day without risking injury or overtraining, so I’m looking for things to do.  Yesterday I cleaned out the fridge and organized the pantry.  Today I cleaned and organized the “water bottle bin.”   It’s basically just a big plastic bin in the pantry where we keep all the water bottles, fuel belt bottles, nalgene bottles, and shake mixer things.  You know, those big bottles with the lids and the little mesh things in them to break up the powders mixed into them?  I also sat around and waited for the wheel guy to call me and let me know that my Powertap was in my wheel and ready to go.  To no avail.  Hopefully next week.  I think I will go buy Hunter Allen’s Training with Power to learn more about how to effectively use it.  It came with a very informative booklet by Dr. Allen Lim (who is also quite the chef apparently http://www.slipstreamsports.com/2008/07/16/cooking-with-allen-rice-cakes) about how to use the Powertap, and I learned a lot.  I, however, am a more-is-better kind of guy and think I will pick up a few more books about training with power none the less. So while I’m waiting for someone to call and offer to pay me for sitting around and running, riding, swimming, eating and sleeping, at least I’ll be learning something.

Matthew Coffman's winning entry

    I returned to Tennessee after my second tour in Iraq with the US Army in June of 2008.  I jumped back on my bike the next day.  In October, I won my age group at the Atomic Man Half-Ironman outside Knoxville, Tennessee.  That was how it was supposed to go, anyway.  In reality, I got home and crashed for two days then got back on my bike.  And I took second in my age group at the Atomic Man.

  I have wanted to do an Ironman since 2005.  It seemed like a challenge, and I like challenges.  I joined the Army after September 11th and became a Special Forces medic.  It was hard, but after finishing all the training I needed another goal.  An Ironman seemed appropriate.  Go big or go home, right?  Of course, Iraq was in full swing at that point and I sandwiched what triathlon training I could between military schools and deployments.  I bought a Cervelo P2SL when I moved to Clarksville, Tennessee and began to train in earnest.  Still in the military, I snuck the training in where I could.  I found that I could compete even with deployments when I finished my first race, an Olympic Distance race in Nashville in September 2006, a week after I got back from a deployment to Jordan.  Motivated to continue my trek towards an Ironman, I continued my training, finishing several races during 2007.  I deployed to Iraq again in the fall of 2007, and returned in June.  As soon as I was back, I informed the army that I was not re-enlisting, and was told my last day would be April 17, 2009.  I entered the Atomic Man and started training.  I raced in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in July and had a terrible race.  The weather was awful and I kept getting blown all over the course.  I thought they were going to cancel the race several times.  I finished, and was disappointed.  It was fuel for the fire.

The Army decided to move me to an administrative position, which I was a big fan of because it meant more time to train.  I trained for the rest of the summer and fall, and was rewarded with a second place finish in Knoxville. The fire got even bigger.

    In February of 2009, I will stop working for Uncle Sam and begin training full time.  I've got the Boulder 5430 Series (a sprint, international distance, and half-iron) this summer to prep for my ultimate goal, the Ironman Tempe race.  I've got a coach, motivation, no injuries, and a very understanding wife.  The race is the 22nd of November, 2009, and I will be on the start line, ready to race.  I will cross the finish less than 11 hours later, and I will be exhausted.  But satisfied.  Very Satisfied.