Wholistic Fitness

thanks Fischer Sports Nordic Ski and Swix for enabling this feeble yogi and new old daddy to nab a 4th Place at today’s SCINTILLATINGLY icy and fast and techy 10k Freestyle at Durango Nordic Center! tomorrow: i teach a 10 am Snowshoe Race Clinic at Vallecito Demo Days! c’mon!  i am now in 3rd position in the 45+ division of the series with my strongest event still ahead…c’mon ilg!

Race Start Time: 10 am
Course Conditions: you’d rather not know,  trust me…all ilg can say?  Thank you Groomers; you did AMAZING with what little snow there was!

Story: all went as well as possible for a Daddy of a 4 year-old just to GET to the Start Line…i waxed cold as per input from Team Coach Josh Dalley of the Durango Nordic Team;  LH6.  before the race i applied a cold liquid layer of flouro…ironically, my skis had been running fast the week before this race (okay, lets be honest…i was only able to train at the nordic center once the week before the race).

Yet, as many of you know;  Race Days bring forth all sorts of unseen Dragons…and sure enough,  the variable conditions present on the track required the most versatile ski skill set from any nordic warrior imaginable ranging from constantly rechurned/tilled snow (we haven’t had any new snow for 3 weeks), dirty snow (meaning pine needles, sap, sticks…), shoveled snow (God Bless the groomers!), and secretive rocks, stumps, and tree carcasses which were like ninjas-in-waiting just at the snow surface to tear the you know what out of your super expensive sidewalls of your ski bases…precisely why i chose to race in my preciously demolished ‘rock skis’ instead of my brand new Fischers which still throb like a virgin in my garage…maybe next weekend at the Chama Classic? 

We went off at 30-second intervals…my precious yogi friend, student and all around bad ass; Andrew Ferguson was the first to go off,  then me, then a whole host of waaaay better, faster skiers than this feeble mountain yogi!   at 1.3k, i actually had maintained the split to Andrew…then, halfway up a 1k uphill section which featured shoveled snow over Gamble Oak and Aspen saplings (yum!) i caught my left ski tip in a tangle of branches which really should have buried beneath 3 feet of snow by now and…

and…

well…

ilg fell.  like a Chinese Friggin’ Dumpling upon our Mother Earth’s scantily clad snowy hide.   what a nerd.

shortly after gathering myself and my heaving 190+ heart rate up…i got passed by one of the Juniors.  then another Junior.  and another.   welcome to ilg’s Real Life.  actually?  i have no visceral sense of, “I’m gonna kill you for passing me,”…instead,  these somber days in my twilight athletic life,  i find and cultivate an inner smile while thinking, “Yup…ilg too was once of you…too young to realize how bad you are hurting,  too much of a whippet physique to realize several more pounds pulling these monster hillls,  too young to yet realize what is required to live a life of outdoor sports and dharmically helping others while attempting to earn a life while doing so…you’ll soon enough learn, Young Gun,”  i think as the young Whippet skis pasts this old yogi like i was a brick stuck awkwardly in some type of white tar, “you’ll learn soon enough…so, go now, and SKI LIKE THE FREEBIRD you are!”

at this point in the story,  ilg could attempt to relate the technical, high speed descents where one wrong mOMent on your skinny, edgeless skis could send you like a racing catamaran into a stout grove of aspens and/or pines waaaay bigger than you, or how i dug super deep to keep the next offending young gun or aging warrior from claiming my own sacred-sweat earned spot in the lineup….

however,  ilg chooses not to.  cuz at this point in my story?   i reckon you realized how HARD i tried to race today, and just how HARD you, too, should try tomorrow in that
precious
soulful
thing that it is
what you love to do…

that is all,

from the front lines of Wholistic Fitness® since 1981…

your ever achievin’ steven