Wholistic Fitness

just another miracle day along the Wholistic Fitness® Path….the Path Works…when YOU work the Path!  selfie taken post race at the Durango Nordic Center

i had ‘That Feeling’ which athletes s(om)etimes get on Race Day…

it’s a feeling that…

well,  even if we don’t gain the podium?

we’re gonna extract some deep down suffering from the cells of our competitors…

today, even with a 4 week-old knee MCL injury that sends most scrambling to surgery and fancy-smancy ‘healers’ which bombard the body with all sorts of dry needling, acupuncture needles, chiropractic adjustments which don’t got the ‘chi’ inherent to chiropractic…today?  ilg Felt It and It was SPECTACULAR!

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Early Morning Ritual – about 6:30 am…

moving through my Neti, Pranayama, and Asana before Grandfather Sun blesses all with His smiling rays over Weber Ridge,  i felt It…It being the Chi,  the Pranic Force…it’s been about the steepest terrain i’ve ever climbed these last several weeks…personal and financial dragons have never raged like this before…yet, the Bhagavad Gita taught me that yogis must remain even-minded especially within root turbulence;  it is a karmic/samskaric Blessing…

suddenly, Angels in myriad ways arise…

and my sense of the Sacred deepens in ways that i never imagined as a young Zen athlete, so capable of so many things…

ilg is old(er) now… and the decades of Service have taken her toll upon my cells,

my being,

yet not my Practice.

for my Practice IS practice and my practice…my workout is everywhere.

9:15am

if only you could feel what i felt as i pre-skied the 5k loop which i’d soon be racing my guts out upon in half an hour…the scenery…the quiet shooshing of my skis gliding upon the freshly farmed courdory track upon these high country hills…you’d be a nordic skier…you’d suffer upon these same sacred snows as has ilg my entire life to hear unseen sisters and brothers from our native Tribe whispering among these Bear-claw scratched aspens…you’d ride the glide and you’d know deeeeep in your spiritual heart that you Belonged to It All…

10:oo am; START LINE

my coach, 3x Olympian Mike Elliot, shouted in that same thunder which still shakes my cells to the bone;  “30 SECONDS TO 10k START!”

i offer a long-time competitor my hole shot start, since my knee injury has prevented any significant training volume or intensity on skate skis…he refused, bowing, “Coach, you always say something like that yet you are always ahead of me anyway…go ahead…”  so i toe the Start Line behind 19 year-old Rising Star, Haakon Sigurslid…

the gun goes off and the mass start is a flurry of union-carbide ski pole tips and flashing limbs which dart back and forth across the pranically loaded high altitude air  like so many Salmon leaping and jumping up headwater rapids.

after the jostling match up Wolverington Hill i settle into 3rd place…just behind the two national class teenies…my braced left knee feels solid and i hammer the first kilometer like a madman possessed, as Paul Sherwyn might put it.   i’d pay the price for my ambitious start in another 6k…every effort at nearly 9,000′ matters.

at K4 a pivotal mOMent arrived whereupon i screwed up tactically due to under confidence stemming from my Knee Inner-Jury.   the two kids were already 40 seconds in front of Dominic Schiavone and i.  i had worked hard to get to Dom who is a guru at ski waxing and always has the fastest skis to complement his 5-decade tuned technique and fitness.  my core strength was feeling super strong however and i bridged to him on the lung-withering uphills…on the penultimate uphill before the Lap,  he pulled over to let me pass.

i didn’t…and that, My Noble Friends, was a mistake.

Nordic Ski Racing is all mental…the pain, the latic acid in your thighs, the endless Voice of Doubt which harkens chronically to your Inner Self: “You CANNOT keep up this pace, this pain!!!”

i mean, the ego is sooooo convincing!

so, i fell into a draft behind Dom…on the high speed downhill where i am often the fastest,  i was about to pass Dom for sure when suddenly, flanked on the left was an incoming rush of junior skiers feathering onto our downhill track from a shorter loop…one kid crashed RIGHT behind Dom and RIGHT in front of me!!!  in a micro second,  i vaulted into mid-air, bunny hopping over the junior skier then suddenly  finding myself being pinched between two more Juniors;  the Mountain Spirits graced me and somehow i disappeared between the two of them and no one was hurt…

however,  through all the Junior traffic,  i lost several precious seconds to Dom…and settled in to reel him in yet again…

LONG SUFFERING STORY SHORT:

nearing the top of North Loop climb,  Tom made a huge attack to which i could not answer since i had been pulling both he and Nordic Coach Mike D, for the past 3k…

i broke…

oh sure,  i kept suffering like a 3-legged dawg to hold onto my podium finish ahead of the racers behind me…yet,  it was done, the pivotal mOMent of the racing had passed and i was the casualty of the high-heart rate slugfest across the sacred snows…

yet, at the Finish Line,  when we all congratulated each other, regardless of placing?   there was deep Sangha…an intense specialness, if not sacredness vibrating among us; young and old,  male or female…we were yogis united by the only real quality which defines, refines, and re-incarnates us;   conscious breathing.

RACE RESULT:

3rd place; mens 50+
6th place overall
time; 38:10…within a minute of the 50+ winner and less than 3 minutes off the overall winner’s time (Haagon Sigurslid, National Qualifier, age 19).

i’ve got several more races and perhaps have a chance for snowshoe nationals, yet i need your help!!!

PLEASE CONTRIBUTE TO MY WINTER RACING RIGHT HERE 

thank you,

get out and DO…

no matter what…

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