Kat Matthews believes a change in race approach could hold the key to achieving her dreams of IRONMAN World Championship success this weekend.
The 34-year-old British athlete arrived in Kona as one of the favourites to challenge for the title as she looks to go one better than her second-place finishes in the 2021 and 2024 editions.
Incredible run of success
There is no doubting her credentials.
Since finishing third at 70.3 Oceanside in April 2023, Matthews has won seven of the 14 races she has competed in and finished second in five more. While it is undoubtedly the form of a champion, she admits some fine-tuning has been required.
As a Captain in the British Army’s Royal Army Medical Corps, she accepts that her approach to racing may have been somewhat regimented in the past, and that learning to race from the heart could well be the key to further success.
Coupled with the wave of optimism and groundbreaking energy that is currently flowing through the women’s sport, she believes this weekend’s showdown on the Big Island could well prove to be something special.
The likes of Laura Philipp (GER), Lucy Charles-Barclay (GBR), Chelsea Sodaro (USA) and Taylor Knibb (USA) all arrive in Hawaii fit, healthy and in form – the perfect ingredients for a truly memorable encounter.
Talking to Bob Babbitt on his pre-Kona ‘Breakfast with Bob’ YouTube channel – which is embedded into the article below – she said: “I think there’s an element of being confident and brave, and seeing other women run fast. Seeing Laura, Anne [Haug], seeing these women take it by the horns and go for it, that makes me more brave and excited, but I think there’s also just a ‘well, why not?’ attitude to the women.
Taking more risks
“I pride myself in having control and composure during races. That is maybe a military thing in terms of the physical effort required to get to the finish line and be ready to fight the battle. So it’s more of a controlled, boring way to race. Actually, this last year, I’ve tried to race differently, I’ve tried to race more with my heart and just risk things. So maybe I’m being less consistent in myself, but actually, it’s playing out really well. So we’ll see how it goes.
“What makes a cohort of athletes generally great, is our ability to want to challenge ourselves. We are able to really delve deep and challenge ourselves to the limit. And I think that’s probably where the biggest challenge that we all have is, where is your own personal limit, whether it’s the time that you want to spend doing the training, or whether it’s the time you have to dedicate to other things in life.”
In a season which has seen her do battle with Laura Philipp in one of the most incredible races ever seen on the women’s circuit, Matthews knows only too well the task ahead of her if she is to win her first world title.
She admits that while proud of her performance in Hamburg, losing out to the German’s epic marathon run time of 2:38:27 ‘broke me a little bit’ and she is trying not to put too much pressure on her own shoulders as she heads into what will likely be another battle with her rival.
Rather than thinking about what it would mean for her to win, she is more focused on trying to achieve the success for all of those who have supported her career switch from the army to professional sport. Clearly desperate for world title success, there is a danger that such high hopes and expectations can lead to crushing lows and devastating defeats.
Doing it for her team
“I think it would be easy to say what’s missing is a world championship’s title, but I think in my mind, I’ve had to come away from the idea that that is the only goal,” she said. “I desperately want to win a World Championship title, for sure, but I have become so happy and confident in my daily ability to push myself and improve and just work towards a goal rather than the goal being the goal itself.
“So it’s more about this overall sort of purpose of not just what can I do for myself, but for everybody else around me… I want to be a world champion desperately, but there is a bigger purpose there.
“It would mean a lot to me to be able to give back to the people who support me. So I think that’s the biggest thing is to share the success as an outcome with everybody who’s put the effort into helping me, because that allows me to then perform. I just know how happy it would make them, and that drives me.
“I know I’m in control of my own personal performance, and I know I’ve put all the work in, and this is the satisfaction of challenging yourself and getting out there and just seeing what you can do on that one specific day.”
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