Kate Courtney on tackling Leadville and her first season as a privateer

The Adventure Stache

Payson McElveen

Outdoors, Interviews, Society & Culture, Current Events, Culture, Photography, Adventure, Mountain Biking, Celebrities, Inspirational, Basketball, Health & Fitness, Entrepreneur, Cycling, Athletes, Sports

4.9 • 727 Ratings

🗓️ 28 July 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kate Courtney returns to the show the day after completing the Leadville Stage Race. Just a few months ago, it was barely on her radar, but after a broken wrist took her out of the World Cup circuit, she decided to look for a new way to challenge herself before the season starts up again at the end of August. In a couple of weeks, she’ll be lining up for her first Leadville 100. Kate sat down with Payson to talk about how the reality of the stage race diverged sharply from her expectati...

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Pace McElvin and this is the WithPace podcast.
0:11.6	I have kind of lived and died by UCI ranking for since I was 17 and being forced to like step away and kind of realize that we often hold these false premises of what has to happen for us to be successful and what is required of us and what we have to do.
0:29.7	I think ultimately what is most inspirational is like being willing to put yourself on the edge and like go beyond what you think you're capable of doing in a competitive
0:38.1	environment.
0:41.4	Hello everyone and welcome back to the show.
0:44.1	Kay Courtney is back on the pod to chat about her little Leadville side project, come
0:49.8	back from Broken Wrist and a little bit more.
0:52.6	We just finished up a really fun weekend together here in Leadville,
0:56.7	racing the Leadville Stage Race,
0:59.4	which is the Leadville 100 course broken up over three days.
1:04.0	And it's kind of become my traditional preparation stepping stone on the way to the 100.
1:09.9	But this year, I think this is my fourth time doing it, but this year definitely stands out.
1:14.1	It was just a really fun week hanging out with Kate and her awesome mechanic Eric.
1:20.8	Sort of reminded me of our Malibut camps pre-pandemic.
1:25.7	And it was also just a really neat opportunity to have a front row seat
1:29.5	to her return to racing and just kind of witness her figure out what this whole Leadville thing
1:35.7	is about. We talk about that plenty, but also touch on her new program this year and some of
1:42.7	what she's learned in her first season as a privateer.
1:46.4	I hope you enjoy.
1:48.4	Today's episode is made possible by Garmin.
1:51.1	They recently sent me the new Edge MTB, a bike computer made for mountain bikers.
1:57.5	It's small, rugged on the outside, but intelligent on the inside. It comes with trail forks
	...

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