Medicine + Triathlon (Endurance Sports) with Matthew Marquardt
Getting the competitive bug, training routines, the “performance” mindset
Matthew is a medical student at the Ohio State University College of Medicine and graduated from Princeton University with a Major in chemistry and minor in Entrepreneurship. Before doing triathlons, he summited Mt. Kilimanjaro at age 15 (January 2013) and raised $6k+ for Make-a-Wish, 2016 US Olympic Trials Qualifier in swimming (200m Backstroke), Varsity Swimmer at Princeton University, and Solo biked across the country in 20 days (January 2021) and raised $15k+ for St. Jude’s Children Hospital (children’s cancer research)
We would love to hear about your journey. How did you initially get into running, swimming, and biking? How has the journey been since?
For as long as I can remember, I have been a runner, biker, and swimmer. I was “water safe” within the first year of my life and I started swimming competitively at 10 yrs old. My mom was a big biker, so I also started biking from a very young age. As a soccer and lacrosse player, during the swimming “off season,” running was also very much in the mix, but it wasn’t until I was 14 that I competed in my first triathlon. The summer before I started high school, the USA Triathlon Youth National Championship was held about 30 minutes from my house. Thinking it would be fun, I entered in the open category and ended up winning. The next summer I did a couple more races but ended up putting my triathlon career on pause as I decided to focus on getting recruited to swim in college. Throughout my time at Princeton, I swam on the varsity team and ran during the off season for cross training, but swimming was my focus so finding time to fit in bike rides a very low priority. That all changed when the pandemic hit. With pools closed for months and in need of some low impact aerobic exercise, I got back on the bike and rediscovered my love for the road. At first, I was just riding without an end goal. That changed during my senior spring when my teammate, Arthur Markley ‘21 entered in a half ironman. Seeing him train gave me the “competitive bug” and before I knew it, I had signed up for my own race. I had always intended to return to triathlon, but didn’t know when that would be. Originally my race was scheduled to be during beach week, but because of the schedule change, it ended up being the day before graduation. With some tight logistics, I completed my race saturday morning in Panama City Beach, Florida finishing 4th overall in a field over 1,400 athletes, drove 5 hours to Atlanta, caught a flight to Newark and arrived in Princeton by midnight. Plenty of time before I needed to show up for a swimming graduation brunch the next morning at 8:30am! I initially intended to only do that one race, but the result qualified me for the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in September, 2021 so I decided to keep training and see what happened. Since then I have been blessed with a rapid improvement curve and success. In August, I won the USA Triathlon National Championship for my age group in the Olympic distance--in character with my first performance this race was the day before I started medical school, and this past weekend, I took 2nd in my age group at the Ironman 70.3 World Championship.
What is your training routine like?
As a college swimmer, I am used to spending 15-20 hours a week on training while also juggling school work and extracurriculars, so I try to maintain that level of training because I know that I can handle it. Each week is a little different but the general routine is to do two workouts--one in the morning and one in the evening--on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, equalling about 3 hours each day. On Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, I’ll only do one workout for 1.5 - 2 hours and then Saturday is my big day where I do one 3-4 hour workout at race effort. I have found that I have my best workouts in the morning so I get up between 5-6 am to fit in my primary workout before medical school classes start at 8 or 9 am. Then I fit in the second workout after classes are over for the day around 4-5pm. In order to recover properly and to maintain a high level of training, I often find myself in bed before 9pm at night.
Juxtapose being a college athlete and competing in these races post graduation. What’s different? What’s the same?
Honestly, the main difference is my attitude towards the sports. In college, swimming was my life. Year after year, I struggled to find success in swimming in college, which meant that year after year, I would devote myself to swimming even more to try to break through and surpass the success that I had found in high school. This determination to improve in the pool meant that I probably skipped out on some fun social stuff a little more than I should have. Additionally, by the time the pandemic came around, I was not on “good terms” with swimming. I loved the sport but was physically and mentally exhausted from the repeated failures in the pool. When I started training for triathlon, I told myself that if I ever had two days where I dreaded doing a workout, that I would step back and reevaluate my relationship with the sport. I wanted triathlon to be fun and to not take over my life. So even though I still focus on recovery, eating right, and getting to bed on time, I am much more open to pursuing other interests and opportunities in my life.
How do you get into the “performance” mindset?
I don’t know how to answer this question. I think that at this point the performance mindset is ingrained into my life. Although I am not always successful, I want perform my best every day. In college, I decided that having a high quality of life was my key to success, so I try to stay very much in tune with how my body and mind is feeling. When I notice that I’m not as energetic, fulfilled, or positive as I want to be, I step back and try to determine what needs to change to get to where I want to be. Sometimes this means getting more sleep, other times it means changing my diet or calling my parents more often. Life is highly variable, so I try to be as adaptable as I can be and to always be experimenting to find that “optimum” state while also not obsessing over being at peak performance all the time.
Tell us about your bike trip across the country? What surprised you most about this experience?
Oh boy! I don’t think we have enough time for that. To give the cliff notes version, During winter break of my senior year, I decided to bike across the country because my final swim season was canceled and I didn’t want to work on my thesis. In order to arrive at school in time to quarantine before the spring semester, I had only 23 days to bike the 2,500 miles from San Diego, California to Jacksonville, Florida. The biggest surprise was not only that I finished the trip but that I did it in 20 days--which included 1.5 rests days because of a snow storm in texas-- meaning that I averaged about 130 miles per day at a moving speed of over 20 MPH. It is incredible how adaptable the human body is and how far it can be pushed when the mindset is right.
How do you balance being a Medical School student and training for triathlon?
It is all about time management and being efficient when studying. I am a big opponent of multitasking, and instead subscribe to the concept of “deep work” which is the idea that you will be the most productive if you eliminate distractions and focus intensely on one thing at a time. So in some ways, I feel like I manage to fit more into my day by doing less. It is all about prioritizing sleep and cutting out what I deem to be “low value” activities such as scrolling through social media--that’s why I don’t have any social media!-- and watching TV.
If you had a magic wand and could change anything endurance extreme sports, what would it be?
I would change the cost of the sport. Triathlon is absurdly expensive. While triathlon is in theory a fairly accessible sport--all you need is a swimsuit, goggles, bike and running shoes-- in reality it is one of the most expensive sports there is if you want to be competitive. Having the latest technology is such a crucial part of the sport that the only way to be competitive is to have top-of-the-line gear. I am not exaggerating when I say that upgrading from an entry level bike to a top of the line triathlon bike could shave 30 minutes of your bike time for a 4-5 hour race. And that top of the line bike. It could cost up to $15,000… Then add to that a $1,000 wetsuit, $300 helmet, $400 bike shoes, $300 running shoes, and on and on. Oh, and the cost to just enter an Ironman race is between $300 and $1000, plus the costs associated with traveling to what often ends up being remote locations--no city wants to host an event that will require 56 or 112 miles of streets to be closed down for up to 17 hours. So, as you can see, the cost of the sport makes it incredibly challenging for people to enter the sport. This is especially difficult for a medical student like me who doesn’t have any income and is already in debt with educational expenses!
So how have you managed to pay for triathlon?
I have been incredibly fortunate to have received generous support so far. My wetsuit and bike were both handed down to me by pro athletes who had recently upgraded their gear. I have also spent a good chunk of my savings from previous summer internships to purchase equipment. It is always hard to dish out the money needed for the equipment, but I try to look at is as an investment. Except for the World Championship, I have managed to keep racing costs down by only competing in a few races this year and in locations that I can easily drive to. This will be more difficult as I move up through triathlon and want/need to test myself against the best pro athletes who literally travel the world for races. As a result, I expect next year to be much more expensive than this year, so I am currently exploring different ways to raise funds (private donations, commercial sponsorships, etc…) to cover my expenses.
10 years from now, what do you want to see happen in the extreme spots?
I want triathlon to be more diverse and accessible to all people, no matter their income.
What is something you have always wanted to try but haven’t had the chance to get around to?
Reading one leisure book per week for a year. I love to read but the decision seems to always come down to reading or getting extra sleep. Sleep generally wins out. Reading may just have to wait until after my athletic career.
If you were not currently in Medical School and participating in Extreme Sports, what would you be doing?
Another hard question! I mean I absolutely love what I am doing now and would have no issue continuing on this path. However, I am blessed--and simultaneously cursed--with many interests. If I didn’t have to worry about making money, I would be traveling to the darkest corners of the earth to take pictures of the night sky. If I had to make a living, I would be working on a medical startup with a focus on improving health by leveraging interdisciplinary design and technology to help prevent people from getting sick in the first place. I am a firm believer that we already have the puzzle pieces to solve most of our healthcare problems but that we just need to figure out how to put them together to complete the picture.
Obviously one cannot predict the twists and turns of the future, but 10 years from now from the perspective of today - what do you want to be doing?
I hope to be finishing up or in the final years of residency training for neurosurgery or orthopedics.
Do you have any advice for your younger self?
I’d like to say “No” because I try to live very intentionally and without regrets. With that being said, the main advice I’d give myself is to trust that the failures and the hard times would be worth it in the end and that the benefits might manifest in unexpected ways.