A Leadville Win and a Leadville DNF: What Both Taught Us About Training

<p>Leadville 100 week gave Microcosm both ends of the sport in a single day: coach TJ David&#39;s athlete McKendree Hickory won the women&#39;s race in her 100-mile debut, and TJ himself dropped at the Winfield turnaround after nearly fifty miles of not being able to breathe.</p><p><br></p><p>Zoë and TJ take both apart honestly. On the win: what five months of coaching actually changed, why TJ inferred McKendree was naturally durable from four years of training history, and how identifying two points of friction — pacing discipline and a reluctance to lean into discomfort late in races — mattered more than overhauling everything. She raced her dress rehearsals under fatigue, ran a conservative early pace by design, and degraded only 8.25 percent over a hundred miles at altitude, where ten to fifteen is considered excellent.</p><p><br></p><p>On the DNF: the difference between confidence and self-efficacy, why protecting mental bandwidth during race week is a training variable, and what it&#39;s like when a heart rate that should read 114 reads 140 at mile ten. TJ walks through the internal argument, the broken poles on Hope Pass, the decision at Winfield, and how he&#39;s processing a race he trained two years for.</p><p><br></p><p>Plus a listener question up front: can you build a Boston qualifier on a treadmill, and what has to happen outside anyway.</p><p><br></p><p>Questions for a future episode: microcosmcoaching@gmail.com</p><p>Coaching and community: https://microcosm-coaching.com</p>