Kat Matthews is, in her words, “a data nerd”.
That’s fortunate because long-distance triathlon events spit out a blizzard of numbers.
Stroke rate, power output, running cadence, VO2 max, beats per minute. Each point plotted on a training plan. Every marginal gain explored over massive stints of endurance.
There isn’t much call for “vibes”.
That’s because the Ironman distance – a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike leg and full marathon – doesn’t leave space for them. It demands precise preparation and delivers pitiless pain. A “mood” or “energy” alone will barely get you off the start line.
Yet the vibe is coming into play for this Saturday’s Ironman World Championship, an event in which Britain’s Matthews, who has a background as an Army physiotherapist, is making her debut.
For the first time since the inaugural event in 1978, the World Championship is not in Hawaii, the distance’s birthplace and spiritual home.
Covid has forced a change. So instead of the South Pacific, the world’s best will compete in Utah, swimming in a warm-water reservoir before riding and running along parched tarmac in the shadow of the state’s sandstone stacks.
“It is a slightly different vibe to Hawaii,” Matthews told BBC Sport.
“The course is more spread out; it isn’t so concentrated on the town.
“I think that has been in the notion in some of the media that if it is not Hawaii, it is not proper.
“But everybody I have spoken to thinks it is fantastic.
“The course itself is so different, there are so many different sections to the bike course. It is not going to be straight time-trial style, it is going to be intense and technical.
“Then the run is three miles uphill, three miles downhill, for the full thing.
“Sometimes in Hawaii if you are a great swimmer or a great runner that can win you the race, where I think this course will reward the great triathletes.”
Matthews, who took up the triathlon in 2015 and became a professional in 2019, is relatively new to Ironman, but has already made an impact.
She beat defending Ironman world champion Anne Haug by more than four minutes at a half-distance – Ironman 70.3 as they are known – event earlier this year.
In September, she was fourth at the Ironman 70.3 World Championship event round the same Utah course that will stage Saturday’s race.
With German world number one Laura Philipp and British rival Lucy Charles-Barclay absent, Matthews is a leading contender.
“Honestly, I do feel in good shape,” Matthews said.
“No-one ever has the perfect build-up to a world championship. There is always training load management that has to go on.
“But I have confidence that I must be in good shape after beating the world champion, someone who has been building to this world championship as well.
“I am actually quite excited to see what I am capable of.”
Finding the outer limits of people’s capabilities, and then stretching them a little further, is Matthews’ speciality.
Despite being a professional triathlete, but she is still serving in, and supported by, the Army.
The 31-year-old’s previous role was as a physiotherapist. She worked at Headley Court – a large stately home set in manicured gardens in Surrey, to where injured British servicemen and women returned from the frontline with life-changing injuries.