Wholistic Fitness

i had found my Prayer Wheel; and it was my own flying feet…

– an injured coach ilg, in the final 800 meters of the Old Oraibi 8k footrace

The START LINE was a scratch of blue cornmeal across the weather-smoothed dirt in the America’s most continuously inhabited village Old Oraibi.

Race Director Juwan Nuvayokva, the Hopi Harrier himself (#10 above photo), was giving final pre-race instructions. Wave of chi radiated from this six-time State Cross Country Champion who was born in this very village sprung from the rock themselves.

i took my place on the Start Line. Around me were 105 runners, 99 of them were Hopi, Navajo, or Zuni. only 6 of us were panaah (white man). i wanted, deeply as a Hopi drumbeat, to be the first panaah across the line.

during my warm up sprints, i was captivated by the long, graceful legs of a Hopi female runner from Ganado…having lived a life among world’s fittest beings, i sensed immediately; ‘she was SomeOne.’ Moments later, on the Start Line, Juwan introduced a few of the VIP Racers…including the long-legged elegant warrioress now standing of my right shoulder, Alvina Begay…

2-time top 10 finisher at the U.S. Half Marathon championships, including a 1:12:57 PR earlier this year. Alvina placed 10th Overall in the 2007 New York City Marathon, finishing in 2:42:46.

Running, you see, is in Hopi blood as much as ‘red’ is in mine.

It was great honor to share Sacred Sweat with these unbelievably beautiful Beings in this most ancient place of this h(om)eland of ours; Turtle Island.

Juwan shouted “Go!” and we took off at a fast, albeit controlled, pace throughout the dusty adobe and rock walls of Oraibi where not much has changed since the 1100’s. i settled into around 10th place and made sure Alvina was nearby. i’d use her as a pacing tool for the first few kilometer descent off the mesa. once we hit the sagebrush mesa flats below, i’d try to keep her within sight for as long as possible. i figured if ANYONE would know how to pace a race like this, she would. Besides, her nifty-fleet body was a joy to be inspired by as my sufferfest meter started climbing as high as the Hopi sky.

Kilometer 1; Soft dirt descent. Still in around 10th place, i was having the time of my life; enjoying my transformation from cyclist last summer, to runner this one. The sight and sense of me, panaah, in this flying flock of gathered Hopi’s running with their long, quiet strides and sandstone solid heads, was thrilling. i felt fit, fast, and capable of a podium in my Age Group…and i desperately wanted to represent the panaah with bravery.

my deeply penetrating sacred joy would soon come to a very, very abrupt transition.

it occurred approaching Kilometer 2, still on this soft dirt descent from the village and the mesa upon which it has sat for eons. i was running side-by-side with Alvina on the two-track descent. a group of 8 Hopis were already ahead, lengthening the distance between them and us. behind me, a thundering herd of 100 Hopis hammering the descent.

that’s when i made a tactical blunder and would pay dearly for it.

“I’m a good downhill runner,” my ego arising through my heaving breath, “I should uncork it a bit more now on this descent to separate myself from the herd behind.”

“no,” said my Wise Discriminating Self, “you need to stick with your game plan. stay where you are, work hard to limit damage on the flats ahead and then do what you are best at; hammer the uphill back up the mesa.”

remember my DL on “Perpetuation of Rationalization”? yeah well, the monster known as the Ilg Ego was in full, shining glory on this sacred mesa, on this sacred morning.

“but,” defended my Ego – and you all know my Teaching on what follows the ‘But’ word…, “you are using this race as your final speedwork before Imogene Pass Race, right?”

“yes, Ego…i am. so what?” replied my Wise Discriminating Self, the same self that i have worked on for over a quarter century of spiritual effort to cultivate.

“well,” countered my Ego with a savvy, lawyer-like intellectual prowess under which – i could already tell – my Wise Discriminating Self would not stand a chance, “you used to be a champion at Imogene because of how fast you could run the 7-mile descent off the summit, so GO! it’ll be important to practice this higher leg turnover before Imogene…”

so there, in that moment, flying off that mesa top, i pressed the throttle of my broken-spine, 46 year-old body like i did as a 17 year-old cresting the top ridge of Imogene and made a move to pass the 10th place finisher of the NYC Marathon like the absolutely, stunning idiot that i am…
and…

promptly felt a bayonet from Shiva lodge itself in my left hamstring…

i pulled my left hamstring in mid-stride and when i landed on that injured leg for the first time it was all i could muster not to fall down, writhe in pain grabbing the hamstring, and shriek like the baby i am.

instead,
having lived the bulk of this incarnation with chronic pain, here is how the Thought Process of a stubborn Teutonic idiot of the Dharma like me works;

First Thought: Amplify the exhale
First and a Half Thought: keep going.
Second Thought: It’s Okay, I can do this
Third Thought: Shit, there goes my podium
Fourth Thought: Shit, i gotta teach yoga on Tuesday night.

now, if any of you have done running intervals during this lifetime which you dang well better have, perhaps you have experienced the blinding pain of a pulled hamstring..the same thing that keeps Olympic sprinters from finishing their 100, 200, 800-meter races. it ain’t pretty, it hurts like hell, and all you want to do is cry.

i still had nearly 7 kilometers of footracing against the fleetest humans on the planet through the roughest terrain through which to run…at an elevation of 7 grand.

i had ’em right where i wanted…

it was at this time that quote from Sogyal Rinpoche came through the intensity of the pain in my hamstring-as-Guru;

Two people have been living in you all your life. One is the ego, garrulous, demanding, hysterical, calculating; the other is the hidden spiritual being, whose still voice of wisdom you have only rarely heard or attended to. As you listen more and more to the teachings, contemplate them, and integrate them into your life, your inner voice, your innate wisdom of discernment, what we call in Buddhism “discriminating awareness,” is awakened and strengthened, and you begin to distinguish between its guidance and the various clamorous and enthralling voices of ego. The memory of your real nature, with all its splendor and confidence, begins to return to you.

You will find, in fact, that you have uncovered in yourself your own wise guide, and as the voice of your wise guide, or discriminating awareness, grows stronger and clearer, you will start to distinguish between its truth and the various deceptions of the ego, and you will be able to listen to it with discernment and confidence.

Kilometer 3:
still running.
well, leaping really, from my “good leg” onto and off my injured leg as fast as possible. i knew i must have looked like an absolute, lunkering beast compared to the dark-skinned beautiful Beings which now flitted past me at the rate of two per kilometer. “if i can just survive the pain of these flats, perhaps when i get to the beginning of the climb back up to the village at 5.5 K, the biomechanics will shift and the hamstring won’t be as much as a factor.” This type of mindset is known as, “positive spinning,”…re-framing absolutely dire circumstances into its most positive aspect.

Kilometer 5.5; Start of the Uphill
i was living another lifetime of pain between the moment of the injury and here. to keep going, besides using my Injured-Wildebeast-On-The-Serenghetti-One-Legged-Leaping-Technique, i was relying on Mula Bandha to counter any leakage of Prana, Uddiyana Bandha to keep my torso up and out of my legs…the heavier i was in my legs, the more piercing the world-class pain in my left hamstring…i HAD to STAY LIGHT! I also relied upon Conscious Breath, Posture, and Mantra as well the Image of my baby daughter, Rinpoche Dewachen, to keep my spirit stronger than my will which wanted only to collapse fetal in the sagebrush and end this torture. i also used Yogi Jesus’s incomparable suffering of being absolutely tortured, broken, and bleeding while still being forced to carry His own Cross to the top of the mesa upon which we nailed Him and left Him to die, bleeding in the sun, as He prayed only Forgiveness upon our avidya…if He did that for us,
then
ilg
can do this
for you.

so i kept running.

Kilometer 7; on the steepest section of the uphill toward the Finish
with the help of my yogic inner work and devotion to you, My Faithful Sangha, i had not yet slipped out of the top twenty.
writing this now,
reflecting on the immense pain,
i don’t really know how i transcended it, save for what i have shared with you.
i guess it boils down to what i have attempted to Teach you all these years;
Trust In The Breath and Posture,
and
Surrender To The Divine…
(Ishvara Pranidhana).

for when we REALLY PUSH OURSELVES
and i mean BEYOND our self-perceived limits,
we empty out the ego and become a far more effective Conduit
of the Divine.

as i kept cultivating The Witness through the belting waves of my breath,
i watched my feet beating themselves into a Prayer to Mother Earth, as if all of Mother Earth now became my altar.

“Everywhere, wherever you may find yourself, you can set up an altar to God in your mind by means of Prayer…”
– Way of a Pilgrim

You see Noble Ones, ilg does not race to win.
ilg races in order to Learn How To Listen.

A race is a pilgrimage.
“Be a pilgrim,” i kept telling myself.

Pilgrims have only One Priority;
They keep going.
No Matter What.

On this uphill, i got passed by who i just KNEW was my Podium Guy; a Hopi in my Age Group. i tried soooooooo hard, Noble Sangha, to convince my legs to go faster regardless of my heaving lungs and fatigued willpower. his name was Garland Navakuku, and he was from Polacca, one of these 11 ancient villages on these three mesas. the soft dirt refused my attempts at closing the 5, then 10, then 15-second gap he put on me.

Then, a panaah passed me.

That made this panaah downright pissed. i suddenly grew tired of chasing Hopis across red, soft earth. i became suddenly and desperately in need of a pair of nordic skis and poles and lots and lots of white snow upon which to crush these skinny-armed runners!

it was then, that i also suddenly accelerated!

and it was then, back lit by the Rising Sun and ushered in by a peculiar Cool Wind,
that i saw my Hopi Father, coach of the Hopi Cross Country team, standing on this pivotal section of the Race Course, merely a half K from the Finish. it seemed all for all the Red World, he was waiting for me,
“HEYA STEVE! GO! ALMOST HOME! YOU’RE CLOSE TO THE TOP 15!!”

i feel so at h(om)e up on these remote mesas with their ancient villages.
in that m(om)ent with Hopi Father cheering me,
ilg felt At One with It All…
Om
Tat
Sat

My Finish In The Village
Oh Precious and Loyal Sangha,
i so wish you could have seen your ol’ coach running up the final meters of the mesa top and along those precious dirt roads through our Nation’s First City…overcoming the swelling of my left leg,
lifting my postural elegance…
my Prayer Feet were now dancing over the rock, across the dirt…
i had found my Prayer Wheel; and it was my own flying feet.

using my training as a road cyclist, i pressured the rear heels of the Hopi in front of me until he literally pulled off to the side,
doubled-over,
and..began puking in the soft, hot heat.

i sprung past him, patting him sympathetically on his back,
“Good job, brother,” i said aloud…
and then,
to myself with a smile i said,
“thanks for playing.”

into the crowd i ran, entering my final sprint for the line at 200 meters.

i would finish in 19th overall, just inside the top twenty, just over a minute behind Garland and my second running podium of the year. my time was 42:15 for the steep, slow 8k course. as an owner of 33:10 road 10k back before my spine injury, i was happy, as i figured my hamstrung-effort this morning would have translated into a pretty fast 10k on a flat, paved road. Alvina would finish 3rd Overall in 34:20 and the tiny Hopi teenager from Polacca; Ronald Laban kicked EVERYONE’s rear end by an astonishing time of 31:59!

as i cooled down with my Hopi Family, holding hands with my Hopi Mother who also ran and finished this 8k race in dual-yogi squat to stretch our lower backs, my spirit was deeply pleased with my effort.

not many, i figured, would have kept running.
let alone racing.
that type of mental fortitude,
that type of spiritual surrender into the Intensity…
has GOT to pay off
in my Bardo Entry.

So, it’s okay to lose a close podium
so long as you did that one, elusive thing that is so utterly hard to do:
your best.

and on this day,
ilg did.
and i finished.

as the Natives from this land say,
“It’s okay.
The sun always sets like an Indian.
It’s okay.”

i climbed back into Bala and headed back to Flagstaff…
moved
by yet another sacred experience in this Land of The Ancient Warriors.

by Tuesday, i would use all my yogic experience, my SUNRIDER Herbs, and MAP Amino acids to teach a great HP Yoga Class by Tuesday…a mere two days after severely pulling my left hamstring…

My left hamstring, this morning, Friday, five days after pulling it and racing on it for 7 kilometers.

Flagstaff, upon my arrival home from the dry Hopi Land was luscious in her monsoon moisture…

climbing out of the Little Colorado River valley toward the Sacred Peak…

Links:
(local reservation story on the race)

(race results from my race)

(great interview with Alvina)