Lifelong Surfer Matt Grube lived in Hawaii before moving to Happy Valley and yes, he’s well aware that there are no waves.

“It’s a different kind of paradise,” he said. “Town is amazing. The people are amazing. There are great restaurants, and Penn State sports. And the outdoors are so beautiful here.”

With the absence of surfable waves, Matt has embraced the outdoor recreation that Central Pennsylvania has to offer. “I mountain bike, swim and train for races,” he said. Today he has even more time to do it. After working at Red Lobster for 20 years, and serving as general manager at Red Lobster for six, he now manages South Food District at Penn State, which he says gave him his quality of life back and also gave him a lot more time to train.

“I’ve run marathons, adventure races, offroad mountain bike races, orienteering, Tough Mudders,” he lists off. “But my favorite are triathlons — IRONMAN is what I love.”

And even though he has a gory story about the first time he ran an IRONMAN, he’s beyond grateful to add his name to the roster of the IRONMAN 70.3 Pennsylvania Happy Valley.

“My first IRONMAN was Florida IRONMAN, in Panama City Florida. I broke a bone in the ball of my foot into 26 pieces — I didn’t even realize that it happened until later. I didn’t run for a while after that, but this past year I was able to do another IRONMAN in Lake Placid.”

Matt has traveled more than eight hours to race, so he says that it’s a unique experience to train for a competition in his own backyard.

“A lot of my friends have wanted to try an IRONMAN with me and I tell them that this is their chance. My son Noah is [21] and he signed up to do it with me. I told him that anything is possible when you put in the training.”

“Anything is possible when you put in the training” is something that Matt grew up hearing, and it molded his life. “As a kid, my parents were my heroes. They ran marathons, and so that’s what I wanted to do,” he remembers.

He vividly remembers watching The Wide World of Sports with his dad in 1982 when college student Julie Moss captivated the nation with her bid to win the IRONMAN. She was just 100 meters from the finish line when she collapsed and Kathleen McCarthy passed her to win first place. The camera showed Julie surrounded by supporters as she refused to give up, crawling to the finish line. (You can see the moving footage here)

“I remember sitting there and my dad said, ‘That’s amazing.’ And I thought to myself — he’s amazed? Then I want to do that.”

“He told me that I could do anything that I set my mind to. It’s something I’ve carried with me through my life.”

Over the next few months, Matt and his posse of athletes are training to run, bike and swim in rolling hills of his adopted hometown, and he has advice for people coming in from out of town (He’s also training for his next full IRONMAN, IRONMAN Maryland, coming up in September).

“I have two pieces of advice. Train for elevation for biking and running — these are rolling hills. Get here early and plan to stay for the 4th Fest because it’s amazing. But make sure you get those hills in. You’ll need it.”