Meet Katie Malone
30 Time Ironman + Triathlon Coach
Katie has been participating in triathlons for 35 years and has been a coach for 20+ years. She has coached hundreds of athletes across the finish lines of sprint triathlons and just as many across their first Ironman finish.
While she is a Level 1 USA-Triathlon Certified Coach in good standing, she has learned more from coaching athletes and living the triathlon life.
Katie came to coaching to inspire and encourage others to follow their dreams. At age 28, Katie quit a good job with an engineering firm and followed her dreams. After a year of missing the qualifications for Kona (the World Championships for Ironman), she dedicated everything she had to make that dream a reality. In 2003, she qualified for Kona. Coach Katie understands that achieving goals requires mental toughness, physical skill, and a great plan. Her gift as a coach is helping people dig deep, far beyond just a training plan. Whether your goal is learning how to swim or finishing a sprint triathlon doesn't matter. She knows how to help you adjust and adapt your life to get you there.
History
Katie grew up riding horses, cross-country skiing, and cycling with her parents. In elementary school, her gym teacher, Mrs. Henderson, told her she was not a good athlete and had poor coordination. This comment proved to be very motivational!
Katie grew up in the rural area of N.J., but her parents retired to N.C. when she was 12, giving her much more freedom to explore on her bike and swim in the lake. She ran cross-country in high school and college but set no records. Her athletic achievements to that point in her life were not noteworthy. The point is that many people don’t reach their pinnacle of athletic success until much later in life, but unfortunately, many adults never give themselves another chance.
During college and afterward, Katie ran and casually took part in triathlons just for fun. She then took up competitive 3-event water skiing before returning to her first love of triathlon years later. Her dream had always been to compete at the Ironman World Championships after watching it on TV as a little kid. After life had thrown her enough curb balls and a few coaches laughed at her, she connected with her first coach, who taught her how to swim well and gave her the skills to take on Ironman.
Coaching seemed like a great way to share the skills she had learned over the years but also as a way to help people and connect with them. It was the perfect blend of her business acumen and her kind and caring ways. Malone Coaching was born in 2002, and since then, Katie has worked on bringing innovative training plans combined with mental skill training to runners, triathletes, and ultra athletes.
