Matt Reed Launches MR Performance Coaching Business

Published November 19, 2014 04:33PM

We caught up with Olympian Matt Reed to talk about his new coaching business, MR Performance, and his outlook on the remainder of his pro career.

Matt Reed: It’s the time in my career where it’s coming to an end—I still want to finish strong and have at least two more years I can see myself racing well—but the time has come to have an exit strategy. There’s life after racing, and I need to continue to support my family. We thought about it over the years and I just wasn’t ready to commit. I came to the end of this year and I felt like the time was right to do it. I want to keep it small initially—up to 10 people—because I do still want to race well. I want to build it to be a strong team and, who knows how big it can get. I’m excited to put to use my 25 years of experience to help people. I have a lot of knowledge not just from my training and racing, but I’ve been with so many different coaches myself—the really good ones like Brett Sutton as an example—and there’s a lot of knowledge I can use to help athletes.

Triathlete.com: Is there a specific ability level you are focusing on, or does it run the gamut?

MR: It’s everyone. It doesn’t matter if you’re a 16-hour Ironman person or a sprint distance athlete or even someone who aspires to do a triathlon, I’d love to coach all sorts of people.

MR: I’ve learned that consistency is the most important thing. I see a lot of people doing some good, hard sessions but are not consistent with it so that work just goes to waste. You want to have fun but train consistently and stay healthy that way.

Triathlete.com: How will the new coaching business affect the coming season of racing—how much are you scaling back?

MR: I don’t think it will affect it at all. I’ve tried to scale back my racing the last couple of years, and that’s just a natural thing—when you get older you can’t race like you could when you were younger, when I used to race four weeks in a row. I’m 39 now, and the scaling down gives me an opportunity to do other things. I’ve found that I’ve craved doing something different other than training and my racing, and I think this is just perfect for the last couple of years of my pro career.

Triathlete.com: How does being a dad add perspective to your coaching of parent-athletes?

MR: I have three kids—ages 9, 6 and 3—so I’ve had to learn a lot about scheduling and time management, and I think that will be one of the most important aspects when it comes to my ability to help people that have full time jobs and kids. I get a lot of inquiries from people who have full time jobs, and I believe that with my experience with my family and other outside commitments I can really help them.