Hannah Otto won USA XCM National Championships! She walks us through her preparation and plan, how she executed and rebounded after a mid-race mishap, and then we dug into my eventful Tahoe Trail 100 that resulted in a Leadville qualification!
Hope you enjoyed this one that was a bit different than normal. Lots of takeaways to be gained.
(00:00) Welcome!
(00:13) Hannah Otto’s National Championship Win
(01:13) Race Course and Preparation
(03:03) Training and Hydration Strategy
(16:20) Race Day Execution and Challenges
(24:56) Jonathan’s Tahoe Trail 100 Experience
(33:14) Power Management and Climbing Strategy
(34:57) Unexpected Result and Reflections
(39:37) Passing Etiquette and Techniques
(50:32) Leadville Race Dynamics and Preparation
(58:23) Nutrition Strategy for Leadville
Good Pod. Enough TR subscribers target Leadville, that it would be nice to have a mini plan for Leadville top up being sweet spot & time to exhaustion focused.
I’d like to know more about how Hannah used the hDrop as well.
Hannah is such a good podcast guest. She has really good discussion points and asks really thoughtful questions. Good job bringing her on to discuss her win.
Great podcast. Always enjoy race recaps, lessons learned, etc.
I thought the neutral aid station discussion was interesting, but it’s easy to forget that many of the cyclists attending these events are there for a fun day riding with others and may be very casual cyclists. I think Jon’s perspective is a bit skewed by his focus on the pointier end of the races and also by doing a lot of USAC sanctioned events where there is less of the “party at the back” dynamic. They do want their chips, M$M’s, and orange slices (plus beer, bacon, whisky, etc.) at the aid stations and aren’t too interested in learning about how to fuel for optimal performance. It’s really the beauty of these non-sanctioned events bringing such diverse people together all riding for difference reasons and goals.
I’m all for educating folks on how to improve fueling for performance when that’s something they want, but I’m not for forcing “best practice” for training/nutrition/etc. on folks that aren’t looking for that. Speaking to Lifetime events in particular, they have all the “serious fuel” with gels, bars, chews, hydration mix etc., but most events also have some “normal” food for folks who want that.
same, I was parked across from her last year the day before and she was so nice to talk to but I wanted to respect her space changing and getting ready so unfortunately I did not get the picture. Also both of those two blew past me SOOO fast on one of the up hill sections.
