If I'm tired, I can sleep through anything. A lot of people who work full-time and try to ride their bike and they've got kids - they're like, "Napping? What's that? I have no idea." So rest and recovery are important for me.Ĭompton: I am a good sleeper. But on big training days, I'll eat, have a shower, and sit on the couch, and within five minutes I'm asleep for about 20 minutes, and it's perfect. Sometimes I don't have time, or I'm just running around, or I'm not tired. "I just don't like to quit," says Compton, who has won over 120 races.Ĭompton: I do, as much as I can. I don't think people realize how important sleep is for aging well, recovering well, and just being mentally fresh. That's when your body recovers itself, when the brain processes everything you've done that day. Nutrition and sleep have been the biggest areas I've improved in- sleep especially. Nutrition has been very important because you can adapt your diet, and choose to eat healthy foods, and do nutrient timing for performance and to feel better and to lean out. People do too much and are usually racing under-rested, and you can see it. Those are probably the biggest improvements I've made, and also just not doing too much, not overdoing it, not getting greedy with the intervals, and not getting overtired. But there's also nutrition and sleep and knowing what my body can do. And the older you get, I feel you get a little bit smarter with your training and preparation. Every year helps you get stronger for the next year, because with cycling and endurance sports, the more time you put into it, the better you are. McMahon: What performance improvements have you've made that have yielded the greatest results?Ĭompton: A lot of it is experience and lots of training time. And they come out to actually watch the races.Ĭompton in action at Waterloo, the first World Cup race to pay men and women equal prize money. In Belgium, they love it it's like their national pastime. We need to bring it to a bigger audience but also have it explained properly, too, so people know what's going on. The more people who watch it and understand it, we could get somewhere where it's like a high-end sport, like golf and tennis and car racing. I mean, people watch poker and pool on TV, and I'm like, really? I feel like bike racing, especially 'cross, is slightly more entertaining than that. We need to get it on TV, but to get it on TV there needs to be interest. But I feel if it hit a wider audience and people knew what they were watching, there'd be a lot of interest in it. It's entertaining for a short attention span, which is perfect nowadays the way our attention spans are. It's not watching a six-hour group-ride on TV during a stage of the Tour de France. Katie Compton: I do, because I feel a lot of people would really enjoy watching it. Do you ever feel as if not many people know your story beyond cycling? Did you ever wish the sport were really a lot bigger? A native of Wilmington, Delaware, Compton lives in Colorado in the offseason, though she primarily races in Europe - mostly in Belgium, the hotbed of 'cross.īusiness Insider recently sat down with the reigning champ at the Waterloo World Cup, where she talked about what she's learned, overcoming setbacks, the struggle for equal pay, and how to grow American cyclocross.ĭaniel McMahon: You're one of the most successful American cyclists of all time, and the most accomplished in US cyclocross. She's taken silver and bronze medals at the World Championships, consistently ranks among the world's top riders, and is again chasing gold as she begins what could be her penultimate season racing as a professional. The 38-year-old has won over 125 races in her 15-year career, including 22 World Cups. If you don't, just know she's one of America's finest athletes, not to mention its most accomplished cyclocrosser, having won the national title 13 times in a row. If you're into cyclocross, the fast-growing discipline of bike racing that combines elements of mountain biking and road cycling, you know the name Katie Compton well. On the bike, she's ferociously competitive, which is how she got her nickname: Katie F-ing Compton. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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