Kate Courtney - Cross Country Mountain Bike World Champion and World Cup Series Champion
Episode 105: Kate Courtney - Cross Country Mountain Bike World Champion and World Cup Series Champion
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Show notes (please see Timestamps below for more detail)
Welcome to The Greg Bennett show, an AnyQuestion podcast hosted by Former Professional Olympic and World Champion Athlete Greg Bennett.
For the past two years, Greg has chatted with the world's greatest athletes and high performers, to find out how they got to the top of the world, and how they are able to sustain it.
Over the next 4 weeks ... having searched through the archives, we've found some exceptional episodes that we are wrapping up in a bow and "re-gifting" to you. Next up ... Kate Courtney.
Together Greg and Kate discuss how Kate became involved in the world of Mountain Biking. Kate was a reasonably competitive kid but never found she excelled in the sports she was applying herself to... ski racing and running to name a few. Then her school in Marine County, California had a Mountain bike race and she was hooked immediately.
Kate focused on her studies at Stanford University (Human Biology) but still managed to race U23 on the world series. It wasn't long before she was recognized as one of the next big guns of woman cycling. At 22 Kate won the 2018 World elite Mountain Bike Championships in Lenzerheide Switzerland, the first American since 2001.
Going into 2019 Kate had pressure to prove that the World title wasn't a fluke. That pressure changed after she dominated the first two rounds of the series to now people were saying, "Kate can't lose!".
Greg and Kate discuss the 2019 season in detail. The high's the lows and mental fatigue. Kate points out the importance of her team - her coach Jim Miller, her team manager Thomas Frishnecht her family, and the rest of the team at Scott-SRAM racing.
Kate describes how she managers her expectations and how she freed herself from pressure by embracing the World Championship jersey.
Kate's training in the gym is heavily focused on developing as many skills for the "situational bank". She challenges her reaction times, stability, mobility, coordination, and balance while improving her strength.
Timestamps
Intro
6.00 – Writing for the WSJ (see link below)
8.50 – Finding direction after Olympics postpone – forced Kate to loosen the grip on Olympic focus. Embracing being at home.
11.00 – The World Cup series in September 2020 – Focusing still on 2021
14.20 – The woman’s field – Stepping up to the elite – World Championships 2018
16.50 – Step by step World Championships 2018 – free from mental pressure – Kate wasn’t focused on expectations
19.50 – Mental preparedness – At first it was pressure – people were saying worlds was a fluke, then as soon as Kate won a few World Cups people were saying she’ll never lose. What an honor to wear a rainbow jersey.
23.00 – Winning the first World Cup of 2019 – doing the double – Confidence
25.40 – Nove Mesto Win again – The races were incredibly hard – even though it looks like dominance
26.45 – Being with a new team Scott-SRAM really helped Kate be her best
29.30 – 2019 Kate really felt supported, she had such a great team – “now I have a chance”
32.20 – Kate was focused on the 2020 Olympics in 2019 it wasn’t all about the World Cup season, but then she was leading the season
35.30 – Les Gets was a special race as Kate won in front of her family – By mid-season Kate was tired
39.30 – Snowshoe and winning the World Cup on home soil - Coach Jim Miller - “We developed a really aggressive tactic – I was the aggressor and pretty much planning to blow up and then hoping I had enough grit to get me to the finish line”
44.30 – World Championship 2018 takes the cake over the World Cup 2019 – How special the rainbow jersey is – The World Cup is harder – Having both titles in nice to have an takes the pressure off going forward but there’s always the next event.
50.00 – Always searching for something new
52.45 – The incredible woman’s competition is incredibly motivating
54.40 – Personalities – there’s a healthy competition amongst the entire field
57.00 – Winding the clock back – ski racing, cross country running
59.00 – Competitive kid
1.00.00 – Kates first race she was completely hooked
1.01.30 – Finding her talent at Stanford
1.02.00 – Working with Jim Miller - Head of High Performance at USOC
1.05.00 – Kate explains the importance of her team – sharing the journey with a team everyone gets something out of it.
1.07.00 – Both parents are very much a part of Kates journey
1.09.00 – Sleep and recovery – Whoop data scores
1.11.45 – Mental fatigue or overtraining
1.13.30 – Gym training – strength training is so important – “depositing into the situation bank”
1.17.00 – Training for technical riding
1.18.30 – What makes XC MTB tough
1.20.00 – Specific Goal setting, Visualizing, Affirmations
1.21.50 – Kate loves data and testing – Nutritional plan
1.23.00 – Preparing for Tokyo
1.24.20 – Conclusion
Links
Be sure and check out bennettendurance.com
Find Greg on social media:
Twitter @GregBennett1
Instagram @GregBennettWorld
Check out Kate Courtney
Website: https://katecourtney.com/
Wall Street Journal Article:
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