IIn early September, Kate Courtney competed in the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships for the 12th time in her career, but set her sights on the marathon distance for the first time. At the forefront of short-distance cross-country and short track events, Courtney surprised everyone by winning the 77-mile event and earning her second rainbow jersey in her nearly ten-year career.
“The competition at the sharp end is so intense and the course was brutal, so I was productively intimidated,” Courtney, 30, said. “I didn’t think too much about the pressure of winning, which allowed me to just focus on myself.”
Despite a final climb that took an excruciating hour, a 20-minute walk through a boulder field and a flat tire on the final descent that could have ended her race, Courtney remained calm thanks to a different mental approach this season.
“I used to feel like I needed to be on every runway to feel successful,” Courtney said. “It was an impossible standard and the pressure was on me. The preparation for the race was almost perfect, and on race day I was completely frustrated. The connection between training and racing was broken.”
At the end of May, Courtney broke her wrist after the third race of the season, which forced her to step away from the sport and reflect on the fact that she had failed. “At first I felt like my season was going downhill,” Courtney said, “but looking back, I really needed a break.”
For the first time since the start of her professional career, Courtney was excluded from participating in the World Championships, and she fell out of the top 20 in the world rankings, something that had not happened since she was 16 years old. It was a tough pill to swallow at first, but it was a game changer.
“What I'm looking for now is not just results, but meaningful participation in solving problems and investing in the process,” Courtney said. “If I approach training and racing as a challenge, it becomes an opportunity for me without the heavy burden of external expectations.”
Her strength and conditioning coach Matt Smith knew her wrist wasn't ready to be thrown back into the rigors of technical short racing and encouraged her to try something new. He invited her to compete in the Leadville 100, the most prestigious long-distance mountain bike race in America. Courtney was skeptical at first, but after a day she agreed: “I found so much freedom in the new challenge. I focused on the sensations, not numbers or structure. Low external pressure, high internal drive.”
On August 9, Courtney returned to racing and lined up at Leadville. Due to early headwinds and new rules that prohibited women from picking off men, the pace started slower than she expected. On the first major climb it started to gain momentum and from that point on Courtney rode at incredible speeds, breaking the long-standing course record by almost 10 minutes.
A week later, Courtney flew to Switzerland with her coach and mechanic to preview the World Marathon. “The two weeks leading up to the race were the most fun I’ve had in my entire career,” Courtney said. “I knew my fitness would change because it was another seven-hour course with a ton of climbing. Mentally I was just focused on the route and my plan and nothing else.”
Being new to marathon racing, Courtney remained under the radar, allowing her to race with more freedom. “I took a chance on the second to last climb and went solo,” Courtney said. “On the last descent down the fire road, my rear sidewall went flat and I just had to hope my tire would hold up until the finish. These moments are earned, but they are also given. Things that are out of your control have to go right.”
Despite 50 career wins, this one was different. It's been seven years since her last world championship, and for many of those years she seemed out of reach. “It was a healing event for me. I raced to the limit, physically and mentally. I hope that's how I'll be remembered as an athlete.”
Courtney enjoyed great success between 2017 and 2019, often competing at the forefront of World Cup racing. In 2021, she made the US Olympic team, another milestone. But the intense pressure of Tokyo and then the World Championships took its toll on her, creating a mental hole that took years to dig out.
“I lost all sense of the process,” Courtney said. “It was a low period for three or four years where I wasn't ready to compete at the level I wanted to compete at. I was putting in a lot but not getting as much out.”
“My dad always says you’re remembered for better days,” said Courtney, who fell in love with mountain biking while riding a tandem mountain bike with her dad as a child. “I was lucky to have a few, but during this period I realized it was more important to zoom out and see the bigger picture. I've been through a storm of big challenges, and those years when things didn't work out meant more to me.”
Courtney changed trainers in early 2024 and started a new training program designed to get her back to where she wanted to be. The first step was to find the motivation to keep working hard every day. The answer has been in front of her for years as she taught young women to mountain bike.
“What kept me in the sport when I wasn't doing very well was paying for it and trying to be a role model for young girls,” Courtney said. “It was a way to make a meaningful contribution beyond my race results, and I realized they didn't care if I won or fought for the finish after the crash. What mattered was how I performed.”
In 2023, Courtney founded the She Sends Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to getting more girls on bikes. “My goal was not to create the next top level mountain bike racer, but to use the sport to prepare young girls for the real world. Mountain biking is great for teaching lessons, showing girls that they can be strong and confident.”
“She Sends” is part of a cultural shift, Courtney says. “When a woman walks into a bike shop, she should be given the same respect as a man. And when she's standing in line on race day, she should be respected for being a great athlete, not just for being 'great for a athlete.'
Her main message to young girls is to take risks. “As you push your limits, you discover that you are capable of more. This year I realized that if I was to deliver that message to girls, I needed to live it. I needed to compete at the highest level and give myself the opportunity to reach my athletic potential.”
Despite her new motivation, Courtney's season started slowly, with poor results in the first two races and a broken wrist in the third. But rather than lose the season, she decided to turn around.
“It’s all about how you measure your success,” Courtney said. “We often place too much emphasis on winning rather than on the process.” She has taken on new challenges and the results speak for themselves.
