It was a scramble to get began. The wind had blown in a day sooner than anticipated and endurance racer Hannah Otto and her workforce have been confronted with a conundrum: try the Quickest Recognized Time (FKT) of Hawaii’s tallest mountain as we speak or delay.
Rewind a couple of months, and Mauna Kea was niggling at Otto’s mind. She’d completed FKTs earlier than—100 miles on Utah’s White Rim, 137-mile Kokopelli Path, the quickest time on the Complete Enchilada—however the Hawaiian mountain was a cease she wished to scale ever since she competed within the World Championships there as a younger triathlete.
Article continues beneath
There was a sentimental draw to Hawaii for the 30-year-old. However she’s additionally drawn to onerous issues. She is one in every of three riders to have completed within the high ten all 4 years of the Life Time Grand Prix, gained the Leadville 100 in 2022 and has represented the USA on the mountain bike World Championships 4 instances. Mauna Kea, or ‘White Mountain’, represented one in every of biking’s most troublesome feats: with 13,700 toes of elevation achieve over 55 miles, it’s the longest climb on the earth and transitions from pavement to 5 brutal gravel miles on the finish. To beat the file, she’d have to finish it in below six hours.
(Picture credit score: SCOTT)
“This one was doubtlessly one of the nerve-racking,” Otto says of her newest FKT try. “The opposite ones have been right here within the States, on the mainland. I had the chance to go and see it, come house, digest it, after which return and do it. This one was totally different. Since we needed to fly to Hawaii, I needed to see it, course of it, and do all of it in a brief time period.”
As soon as Otto had closed her web tabs, gathered her help crew and set out for Hawaii, she was met with the sheer scale of the feat forward of her. The primary 40 miles account for almost 7,000 toes of the climbing. The opposite 7,000 toes of elevation come within the remaining 15 miles at a 20% gradient.
Apart from the bodily distance and top she’d need to climb, Otto would additionally need to cycle by way of altering temperatures and mountain ecosystems. On leaving the city, she would journey by way of a barren panorama fashioned from lava rock. Then she would transfer by way of grasslands and into what she referred to as the “cloud house,” the place the moisture within the air hangs like rain. Bursting above the cloud, the mountain turns into barren as soon as once more. There she must brace for whipping wind and chilly temperatures.
“It virtually feels such as you’re on the moon, however you’re truly on a volcano!” Otto says within the just lately launched documentary, ‘Infinite Pursuit’
However it’s the ultimate few miles on delicate and unfastened gravel street that might show essentially the most troublesome part of the climb. Graded bi-weekly, the workforce realised that the day they’d proposed to set off uphill would coincide with when the gravel is softest. Mix that with the forecasted wind, and the try regarded harder to realize. And they also set off a day earlier.
(Picture credit score: SCOTT)
As a lot as Otto likes a problem, she additionally likes a plan, and the last-minute change to the try did, for a second, throw her off guard. However the help workforce had determined it was greatest, and so she trusted them.
The wind was Otto’s first nice problem to face. Twenty miles into the journey, she was six minutes forward of the file however within the subsequent 20 miles, the headwind wore away at her time.
“I did have a second the place my thoughts began to permit the doubt to sink in,” Otto remembers. “However I stayed motivated, and I stored pushing. It is not about not having these doubts, it is about having them and reframing it into effort: I can not management the time; I can not management the wind; I can not management whether or not I succeed within the sense of being the quickest, however I can management how a lot I give on the day and the way onerous I strive.”
Over her 21-year-long profession, Otto has cultivated a singular lifestyle and racing. Relatively than getting down to be the quickest or the very best, she traces as much as show to herself that she will be able to do it. As an alternative of being in competitors with others, she’s in a technique of steady self-development.
(Picture credit score: SCOTT)
“For me, that is how I’ve survived on this sport for thus lengthy,” she says, “a sport that’s actually rigorous and demanding.”
Otta shares that when she was a younger skilled, “successful wasn’t on the desk.” On the Clif Professional Group she was surrounded by Olympians and World Champions.
“If I in contrast myself to these athletes at that stage in my profession, I might have by no means measured up. It will’ve felt like I used to be at all times behind,” she says. “However as a substitute of evaluating myself to them, I may ask myself: are you higher than you have been final time? Are you the very best you could be as we speak? And that is what at all times motivates me.”
It’s no surprise then that Otto is able to such astonishing feats. On October 23, 2025, she efficiently claimed the Mauna Kea FKT with a time of 5 hours, 43 minutes, and 50 seconds.
(Picture credit score: SCOTT)
“One of many issues I like about gravel racing, about endurance mountain bike racing, and about these FKTs, is that they’re open to everybody,” she says, now six months on from the problem. “I’m continuously motivated and impressed by individuals who end behind me. It is not concerning the pace, it is concerning the course of and what you overcome.
“I believe the most important factor I actually need folks to remove from that is to not be afraid to strive no matter their Quickest Recognized Time is, whether or not it is Mauna Kea or the climb of their neighbourhood…the bravery is within the willingness to strive with out figuring out for positive you can succeed. If we knew we may succeed, the purpose would sort of be mute. It is the thrill that comes from attempting regardless of not figuring out.”