Wholistic Fitness

“To cultivate strength of self through softness in the midst of chaos, ahhh…therein lies High Performance Yoga�…”The Union with Divine Action.” – coach ilg, far right, practicing some “HP Yoga.” photo by Ananda.

“The harder it hurts, the softer i relax into the intensity.”
– coach ilg

SCENE: Memorial Day, 2006. Upper Lake Mary, Arizona. 6,850′.
Final Day of the SUMMIT CENTER STAGE RACE; a 60-mile Road Race with a 1.5 mile uphill finish. Our leading Team Member, Steve Sanchez who was in 8th place in GC (General Classification) only a few minutes behind the Leader, did not show up for today’s race. Stomach complications.

That left one pure climber, 18-year old mountain biking phenom Ian, and Jeremy who had the fastest prologue and crit times for our Team, and Aaron – a UPS driver who is fit yet still learning peleton bike and fitness skills, and myself. Currently, i find myself as the highest ranking Team member in the GC at a whopping 11 minutes down from the Leader, pro triathlete Peter Traylor. Traylor’s team is huge, strong, and well versed in protecting their well respected Leader. I train with Peter on weekend rides and he has caused much suffering within my cells. His bike fitness is in a Higher Realm than all else in this race. Something involving Shiva would need to occur to take this race away from Peter and his cycling ‘henchmen.’

Fortunately, we lowly three needed only one crucial thing…that one and only thing that a Warrior needs to take down a Goliath;
we needed a Plan.

So we made one.

We would launch at least one, if not three, “Suicide Missions” in order to win this thing today. At an impromptu Team Meeting moments before the Gun went off, we sat on our bikes like the Warrior Steeds they were, and laid out our Self Assisted Suicide Tactics.

As the most experienced of our remaining Team, i took on the Leader’s role;
“Ian, i know you are itchy in a peleton and i can sense you want to do something today, huh?”
“Yeah dude, i just…dunno…fuck, yesterday sucked and Perkinsville sucked, and well…i just wanna launch out on a long breakaway or something.”

i know a thing or two about this mountain biker’s mentality. a mountain biker’s mindset does not well mesh with the often nit-picky, claustrophobic, surging heart rate society of a speeding peleton that eats up and spits out paved road miles by the dozens as if predestined by Divinity. mountain bikers, used to the solace of suffering closer to nature, just want to put their head down, draw their senses within, and hammer until the sweat that beads upon their forehead is replaced by the blood of self knowledge. knowing this as being both a mountain biking champion and an 18-year old once a looooooong time ago, i told young Ian;

“Awlrighty bro, today is your day…if anything goes early and it looks like it is good and going to stay away from Summit (the team of Peter Traylor who is wearing the yellow Leader Jersey) then get yourself into that break. Jeremy, me, and Aaron will block for you, cool?”

“Cool…and if i go solo, it will be around the Turn Around point, okay?” Ian replied, his lower lip pursed with anticipation of great pain and possible glory.

“Right on, let’s do this thang…” we agreed as the Race Gun went off and our rolling city of suffering began winding its way alongside beautiful Upper Lake Mary.

SCENE: Intermediate Hill Sprint Prime; mile 9.5
The first decisive corrosion of the weaker riders began here as we surged up the infamous “3 Steps” a series of ledges that you might not even notice in a car yet sizzles the leg muscles of a bike racers like a branding iron…i managed to hang in with the Lead Group by the top Step and looked backward for signs of my Teammates. All i could see behind me was a long, shredded wake of anaerobically wheezing racers struggling to maintain contact with our Lead Group. The past two days had sapped the sap from many well shaven legs. “This is good,” I thought as i prayed that Ian, Jeremy, and Aaron would survive this first ‘cutting of the deck.’ It’s a hard sport.

SCENE: Steepest Hill (18%) at mile 22.
The main leading group has been reduced from 60 racers to under 40. The strong are surviving, the strongest are thriving. I decided to run a Test and learn if there was a Thrivor who could help out our Team today. Here was the Old Man Ilgonian Test; i put in an attack right on the steepest section of the hill. i wanted to see if there was a strong rider from a Team other than Summit Center that, possibly, may wish to come out and play with our Team and help us out in a long solo break. if so, then Summit Center would have to expend energy in chasing my breakaway…once Summit Center did catch me, then Ian or Jeremy could launch their own counter attack.

So, i went.

i put in about a 80% effort standing attack. Kept my head down, mantra strong, legs dancing, and mental tenacity churning like a Mommy Salmon swimming upstream. i invoked an image of Marco Pantani and felt light as a Ravens feather…fantastic Zen moments those…exciting…knowing that i had captured the attention of at least 40 racers and forced them to consider new tactics. by my attack, i changed the face of our Memorial Day war on wheels and it felt go(o)d. Each of us weaves either wildness or tameness into our personal world. To cultivate strength of self through softness in the midst of chaos, ahhh…therein lies High Performance Yoga…”The Union with Divine Action.”

I tucked away my attack upon the peleton after about 45 quality seconds. To get a feel for this, stop reading right now, stand up and do a one minute set of Jump Squats as fast and as high as you possibly can. now, imagine having been racing your bike for 1 hour and 43 minutes going into those Jump Squats…you get the idea behind the Divine Action Yoga…the High Performance Yoga…you gotta become One with your breath and sweat in order to Surrender to a Higher Force.

i guess i must have hit them where it hurt with my attack, cuz i had produced a significant gap….i was ahead of the peleton by about 20 seconds! Must be the SUNRIDER Herbs? Whatever it was, it was an interesting place. Just me and the Lead Moto tooling along together in the Land of Sister Wapiti and Brother Eagle. An abiding calm and scintillating Joy descended over my cells in those quiet moments ahead of the pack. I felt go(o)d to be alive and fit enough to fuck with a testosterone loaded pack of punks. I write that will full Yogic compassion for the yin and yang within us all. Must be the Gemini inside.

Though well ahead of the peleton, i chose not to sustain my attack and instead settled into a moderate Zone 3 heart rate and Time Trial position. i guess the Yellow Jersey told his domestiques to shut me down cuz i soon saw some poor Summit Center guy come galloping up towards me at his best warp speed, his skinny arms swaying his bike back and forth in the way a butcher might cleave the glute of some poor dead cow. i let him come up to me. i was not interested in trying to stay ahead of a 28mph peleton with more than half the race still to go. In my attack however, i gained useful intel about my enemy and of the fitness of the peleton. My Test fueled my Warrior within and prepared my spirit for the miles still to come. The Summit Center guy finally bridged to me, poor guy breathing like a racehorse. It’s a hard sport and he was just doing his job; sent out to suck my wheel. Within another two miles, i and my little suckerfish were absorbed back into the lead group and regained our collective waltz as we raced toward the critical Turn Around. As our peleton soared through this last and largest remaining forest of old growth Ponderosa, i gave myself permission to be as brave as these trees and as strong as their roots.

Good thing too, for it was there, at the Turn Around, where our wheeling wardance would begin to get VERY interesting…

coming tomorrow in DL…the conclusion of the race!