Last October I completed the Hawaii Ironman and as in the last 5 times I raced in Kona, it was a very proud moment. One of the differences from my first 5 times and this last time is the race coverage. The coverage that is available now was not available then. In 1993 there was no internet coverage; the internet was just a lab research project then. If you wanted to know the results you literally had to wait until the next morning and buy a copy of West Hawaii Today, the local newspaper. Then hope that your finishing hour made the newspaper printing deadline. Now all you have to do is go to Ironman.com and look up the results. You can even see the finishing video of your favorite athlete etc. But if you want to look up a finisher in 1993 you can not find his name or results anywhere. The only way is to find a results book that Ironman used to snail mail a month or so after the race. Because of this I wanted to take this opportunity to mention my friend and training partner Matthew Cevallos who competed with me in 1993 and who last December of 2006 passed away to what we hope is a better place. Kid Matt as I called him, you are an Ironman! I will miss you.
Matthew Cevallos moved to Boulder Colorado as a recent college graduate to see how well he could do in triathlon. He was a great swimmer and I met him at the pool. I could not keep up with him on short fast sets but loved to push him on longer sets. Quickly we became friends and he was impressed that I had raced in Kona a few times already. One summer night in 93 Matthew called me and said “Luis I qualified for Kona”. Are you serious? I said. Matthew raced the Chicago Sun Times triathlon that year and got one of the slots in the 18-24 age group. This race was a “short” Olympic distance race and yes back in the day there were a few Olympic distance races that had Kona slots. I had already qualified and was very excited for Matthew but also for me as I now had someone to mentor and train with. As you can tell I liked coaching back then.
Helping Matt was not easy as he was not the most consistent at his training. But I did take him on some epic rides and runs. He had the speed but needed help with his endurance. In the end we knew that he was ready for the swim and the bike. Some injuries prevented him to get all his runs in but in any case off to Kona we went. On race day we virtually got out of the water together with a 53:38 split but I did not see him. It was not until mile 80 on the bike that I caught up to him. As always he encouraged me and I did the same for him. Matt split an excellent bike split of 5:04:51. Now it was up to his run. The great thing about the run is that as long as you keep the fluids and calories going in you can slow down and worst case walk to the finish. Of course you need to have enough time before the mid night cutoff. Matt with his stellar swim and bike splits had tons of time. He ran and walked the marathon taking time here and there to say hello to many. For one reason or another I did not see him on the run course but many of my friends did. In the end Mathew Cevallos ran the marathon in 4:41:35 and finished the Hawaii Ironman World Championships in 10:40:04 good for 577 place overall. This was one of his proudest moments. Both he and I spent some time at the medical tent that day and I remember all the girls that would come by to see how he was doing. Matthew was very popular with the girls.
Mathew is no longer with us but I hope that this article serves as an internet memoir for those whose life he touched and if they happen to search the web for his name they can find out a little about his life. Mathew Cevallos lived in Boulder Colorado during his Ironman training year of 1993 and if you were there then you probably remember his smile and happy personality. Mathew’s funeral program cover is his 1993 Hawaii Ironman photo taken at the photo stage and it reads. “Life was meant to be lived. I lived.” Yes he did.