Mat and Jen Quinlan are Spartan Warriors

Mat Quinlan has two goals for 2025. First, the Santa Clara resident aims to top all other competitors at the Spartan Trifecta World Championship in West Virginia in September. Second, he plans to pay a visit to the high school teacher who never gave up on him. In both instances, Mat hopes to demonstrate that he has what it takes to go the distance, despite formidable odds.

By the time he was an adolescent, Mat’s academic performance was all but nil. Following the breakup of his parents’ marriage, he was mostly left to fend for himself. With no one to hold him accountable and teachers who shrugged off his constant absences, Mat fell between the cracks. “I literally hadn’t done school since I was nine,” Mat confirmed. “My teachers would just pass me forward to the next grade; no one cared if I showed up or did any work.”

With his future looking bleak, Mat assumed he would remain in the desert town of Ridgecrest, California, forever—that is, until he met Jennifer Morgan when they were both fourteen. The cherished daughter of a career U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer, Jen’s choice of a boyfriend hardly thrilled her family. Said Mat, shaking his head ruefully, “Since our junior high school was on the base where Jen’s dad was stationed, he knew all about me. Nothing against him; I would never let my daughter date someone like me.”

Mat ended up at a high school for troubled youths; coincidentally, a certain Ms. Kennedy, who’d been one of his elementary school teachers, was on staff. Glimpsing his potential, she brought in old tests he’d taken when he was a youngster and did the unthinkable. She told him he was smart, and she believed in him. What’s more, she coached him through enough math problems to secure his GED, which he would need to follow Jen’s suggestion that he join the military.

The moment he turned eighteen, Mat married Jen. She would celebrate their first anniversary solo; by then, Mat was in Air Force basic training, later becoming a member of the U.S. Air Force Security Forces (AFSF). After three years of providing security for nuclear weapons in Wyoming, he joined the 820th Base Defense Squadron, a “first-in” airborne unit responsible for securing air bases in combat zones. Two tours of Iraq followed. After six years of military life and the arrival of his first child, Mat cycled out. But his subsequent employment options were hardly encouraging.

“We were super-broke. Jen was pregnant with our daughter, and we were living in a one-bedroom apartment, sleeping sideways with our son on a borrowed twin mattress,” Mat recalled. “We’d drained all our savings, and nine dollars an hour at a tire store wasn’t going to support my family.”

A coworker suggested that Mat consider enlisting in the Air National Guard. He did so and found that the extensive training and physical prowess that had been a part of his AFSF stint equipped him for success. He was sent to Combative Instructor and SWAT schools. He also became an Active Shooter Instructor, earned a black belt in MCMAP (Marine Corps Martial Arts Program), and became a Modern Army Combatives Program Instructor. As the years went by, the certifications and honors piled up. By the time he was forty, Mat was able to retire with a full active-duty pension.

Toward the end of his military service, Mat had set a base record for a 1.5-mile run, clocking in at 7:44, and had bested opponents in MMA cage fights and military combatives tournaments. “I knew I could outrun the guys on my cage fighting team. That was kind of my opening to athleticism,” he noted.

Fast-forward to 2025. Now both forty-five, Mat and Jen have devoted the past decade to competing in Spartan Races across the U.S. For the unfamiliar, think IRONMAN® meets American Ninja Warrior, with the addition of mud, obstacles, a “compromised carry” (i.e., running while toting a pair of sixty-pound sandbags), and other impediments. Participants can compete in either a Sprint (a 5K run with twenty obstacles), a Super (a 10K with twenty-five obstacles) or a Beast (a 21K with thirty obstacles), all on unpaved trails with grueling altitude gains. None are for the faint of heart.

Jen’s participation in Spartan Games was more a wish to support her husband than a desire for medals. “When Mat first said he wanted to compete, I said…’OK?’ I kind of go along with whatever he’s doing. Really, it’s been that way since we were fourteen.”

It didn’t hurt that Jen, a middle school technology teacher, was a CrossFit Level One instructor. But running was never in her repertoire. That all changed one day when Mat, alarmed at what he called her “panic breathing” two miles into a training run, stopped her and did a verbal inventory: Was she having trouble breathing? No. Legs hurt? Nope. Stomach OK? Check. “He finally said, ‘Then stop victim breathing and run!’” she laughed. “That’s when it clicked in; I can run.

“I really have to give Mat credit,” Jen added. “I would not have tried all these things that took me out of my comfort zone; if it weren’t for him, I’d probably be home doing crossword puzzles and crocheting like my mom.” 

That encouragement resulted in Jen taking second place in her age group in the 2019 Bryce Canyon 50K despite never having run more than six miles before. She was also the top nonprofessional female in the 2018 Utah Spartan Race, besting every competitor across all age groups. 

Since Spartan has discontinued the prestigious Pro Team—a long-term goal for Mat—he and Jen have set their sights on the Spartan Trifecta World Championship this fall. This will see the duo completing a Sprint, Super, and Beast in a single weekend. Oh, and there’s that trip to see Ms. Kennedy.

“I need to go back and tell her that it wasn’t a mistake for her to work with me. I joined the military, I had a successful career, and I want her to know that she didn’t do it for nothing,” Mat said. 

Jen asserted that being a Spartan competitor has changed her self-perception. “I’ve learned that I’m way more capable of things that I’d never even thought of doing. Racing makes you understand that pain is not your enemy. You’ll survive, and you’ll come out stronger.”

To Mat, “the best in the world” will be tackling the mountains in West Virginia in September, and he wants to see how he stacks up. “It’s so cliché, but it really is so much more mental than physical. It’s pouring yourself into it every day—every track session, every mountain run, every compromised run—and finding the mental grit and fortitude that you didn’t know you had. I think I still have more in me. I’m not sure how to tap into it, but I know it's there.”

More information about Spartan Races can be found at https://www.spartan.com/.