Athlete of the Week

Senior Matthew Coyle is a runner on Carnegie Mellon’s Track and Field team. He recently won individual first place in the UAA championship. That doesn’t come easy, so in addition to his majors in electrical computer engineering and robotics, he also tackles practice every day of the week. As a member of the Track and Field team, Coyle runs every day of the week with workouts on Tuesdays and Fridays. Sundays consist of long runs meaning they go from running 14 miles to 17 miles. 

The distance they run also depends on what season it is, Coyle said. During cross country season, “it’s a lot more volume than speed work which means longer reps.” Cross country season is during the first semester of the school year. The athletes on the track and field team come back to school a week before everyone else for pre-season. This gives them an opportunity to meet the new freshman and for the coaches to make any cuts they need to. Then the season goes pretty much up until the weekend before Thanksgiving. “So for us now, it’s like two weeks out from our national meet and both our men’s and women’s teams are looking to make it so far.” Then they get about two weeks off before they get back to training for track, which goes until the end of May. 

Coyle began running in fifth grade, starting with track and then branching off into cross country. He said that he had a really good coach who instilled a love for the sport in him, which inspired him to carry on through high school. “I had a couple friends who did it and then he just made practices fun, so it wasn’t like I felt like I was being dragged there.” While Coyle initially didn’t know whether or not he would continue in college, he says he’s glad he did. 

The track and field coaches are an important part of the team’s success. Coyle explained how their head coach Tim Connolly’s years of experience coaching make him a great help to the team. Assistant coach Adam Colorito, is also a great help to the team. “Them two together have been doing it for a while and so they kind of build off each other especially around meet times.” Coyle also said that this year they have a new assistant coach training to be a coach, Hayden Hunt, who graduated last year from Shippensburg University. “It’s been really fun to have him just because he’s only a couple years older than us and has been running with us and doing our workouts. So it’s good to get a younger perspective as well.” 

After graduating in 2025, Coyle hopes to get into “some sort of robotic space or startup space” specifically something involved in green tech and creating things that are good for the environment. “I want to do something that helps the climate and is good for people, so hopefully something like that in the future.” 

With regionals coming up in two weeks and Nationals shortly after, both the men’s and women’s teams are training hard to compete. 

Coyle concluded by saying that if anyone is interested in running, it’s a great way to see Pittsburgh. A lot of people run around campus, but Coyle suggested people try Frick Park. “There’s a lot of trail systems and stuff that you can get going on, as well as just going down to the river and running. You get to “see more of Pittsburgh that way, and just get outside, which is a great thing to do.”