Wholistic Fitness

COACH ILG’S PEP TALK TO HIS MOUNTAIN YOGI TEAM FOR MT.TAYLOR QUAD

Next Saturday, Coach along with his Team Mountain Yogi teammates; WF Teacher Joseph “Haku” Sheader, and Richard “Gram Man” Verderame, will race up and down this Navajo Sacred Mountain from the town of Grants, New Mexico engaging four different sports along the route; cycling, running, nordic skiing, and snowshoeing.

Team Mt. Yogis!

i trust your final weekend before the event is going well and the chi is percolating!
looks like we are in for a true Mountain Event; it’s been COLD and SNOWY on the Turquoise Mountain!

i would suggest bringing down any high intensity from this point onward…you will not make any physiologic gains in threshold capacity this close to the race, so it is more important to come in fresh and full of CHI!

any time spent above Low Zone 3 should be limited to 2-3 minutes with at least 8 minutes between bouts. thus, no more long intervals (thank God!).

{the “Gram Man”; Dr. Richard Verderame of Rio Rancho, NM will be Team Mountain Yogi’s lead off and anchor cyclist. one of my longest and dearest training companions from my old Motorola Team, it’s gonna be great hooking up again with the ever fit and focused ‘Grammage’!}

having said that, it will be important to, as the old Cardio Masters used to put it, “Keep the Lungs open,” from now until Race Day. thus, each of us need to get in Cardio every day for at least 50% of your Event Racing Volume with a couple to several intervals of one minute surges, such as Cruise Intervals, just to keep the pulmonary tissues open…just take the engine out for a spin from this point onward and we’ll open full throttle on Race Day! be prepared to HURT and put the HURT on! make sure ANYONE who passes you is gonna have to HURT more than you! race from your guts and allow your Spirit to Soar.

{WF Teacher Haku is our team’s ace for the race! Haku can run as fast as a deer and as agile as a mountain lion…which is good considering the rather disconcerting fact that over 80% of his 10 mile Run Section is buried beneath icy snowpack! Hey, it’s all yoga, baby! Haku will hand off the baton to me after his RUN UP whereupon i start lugging my fat ass up to the summit and back to Haku doing two different snow disciplines; nordic (cross country) ski racing and snowshoe racing. you can check out this fantastic event which i helped popularize in the Rocky Mountains during the eighties when i was a roving Racer/Race Reporter at:}
http://mttaylorquad.org/

i am still planning to leave for New Mexico on Monday or Tuesday; i might train nordic skiing in Flagstaff, then go to Mt. Taylor and test my ski and snowshoe set up directly on the course. then, i’ll head to my parent’s casa in Albuquerque and hopefully hook up with the Gram Man for some Tribal Chi! i am bringing my laptop, so i will do my best to stay in touch.

{here i allow you a sneak peak at the extremely top secret method of how i will ascend the incredibly steep 2 mile section of the Ski Up Section…i custom cut expensive climbing ‘skins’ onto tiny nordic skate skis. for the high speed descent from the summit of the mountain, i will tear off these skins and make like Bode Miller on the tiny edgeless skis! yeah baby! mountain yoga!}

this is going to be fun!
Cold fun…
suffering fun…
focused fun…
SPIRIT BUILDING FUN!!!

we are all very Blessed to have the fitness and the courage to keep training to honor God’s Gift of our body,breath, and spirit in this way.

let us pray via sweat and speed! see you in New Mexico soon!

{ilg on the sub-zero summit of “Turquoise Mountain”…Mt. Taylor, during a training recon earlier this winter. current wind speed across the summit is average 28mph! try running uphill into THAT with snowshoes and you KNOW why HP Yogis and WF Warriors are different! WF was born from these type of spirit testing events!} Photo/Ananda

and keep reading: DIRECT LINES: Daily Meditations From Coach Ilg
http://www.wholisticfitness.com/weblog/ilgblog.html

i bow to you,

coach ilg, ryt/uscf
founder/WholisticFitness.com
author/TOTAL BODY TRANSFORMATION
Director/SUNRIDER International