Wholistic Fitness

WF Warrior Roberto Crespo used Wholistic Fitness and Online Consultations with coach ilg as part of his preparation for what resulted in a fantastic 2nd Place Finish at the ‘The Toughest 48 Hours in Sport’ with three of his fellow Pasadena Triathlete bros. May his report below fire up your chi for your own Practice…

CONGRATULATIONS, WARRIOR CRESPO!!!!! DOING THE DO, BABY!!!!!

steve ilg’s WHOLISTIC FITNESS; Sticking The Light Where It Can Shine; since 1982!

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Hola Coach,

Just wanted to share with you and the WF Sangha some pictures and tall tales from the Furnace Creek 508 that I competed in a couple of weeks back.

As a 508 veteran I sought you out for advice and your training plan was exactly what I needed to get not only my body but my mind in the right place to tackle what is billed as ‘The Toughest 48 Hours in Sport’…… 508 miles with 35,000 feet of climbing. Some choose to tackle this race in a 4-person relay team, other choose to go the 2-person relay team route. Still others choose to go solo, and the truly _________ choose to go solo….on a fixed gear bicycle.

I put together Team Smoking Loon with 3 of my friends from the Pasadena Triathlon Club….much closer friends after our adventure in the desert.

The race is broken up in to 8 stages and I had chosen stages 4 and 8, meaning I would be riding last on the first day and finishing up the race on the second. My first stage took me from Furnace Creek, at the North end of Death Valley, thru the valley and over the mountains into Shoshone, about 74 miles with 6700’ of elevation gain, from the lowest point in the Continental United States (Badwater at -282’ below sea level) up and over Salsberry Pass (3500’ above sea level).

I started my journey at 1am in Furnace Creek with a warm desert wind blowing from the North, a blanket of stars in the sky and a range of emotions in my head from fear to elation to calm….a calm from knowing that sticking to two principles; breath and posture, will carry me thru Valley, up and over the Mountains, and much further than the end of stage in Shoshone.

The first 40+ miles were amazing and I was feeling incredible, knocked out this section in a shade under 2 hours. This section was the preamble to the climbs up and over Jubilee and Salsberry Passes. Here I realized the huge difference between our local climbs in the San Gabriel Mountains and the desert…no more switchbacks, no flat sections between short climbs…just long, straight, relentless climbs with nothing around but the desert sand and sky. As I started up the first climb, one thought echoed in my head in between counts of my pedal strokes…’Don’t add Drama, add more Breath’. This singular mantra carried me up and over the mountains, despite the relentless grade, the dropping temperatures and the increasing (head)wind. When I reached the summit of Salsberry Pass, I thrust my fist in the air, let out a ‘Yeah Baby’ and prepared for the descent….unfortunately into that head wind which was now picking up the desert sand and hurling it at me with some velocity. As I started to shiver, question my motives and really wish I was inside the van, I remembered that I was the lucky one…alone on my bike, blessed with the health and means to do something like this as recreation, and thru my efforts sending waves of chi back home to my twin daughters and loving wife.

I finished my first stage completely shelled but elated that I got out and followed the simple principle, ‘Do the do’….
Less than 7 hours later I was back on the bike, and NOW the real challenge begins….following up 74 tough miles with 60 semi-tough miles after sitting in a minivan doing my best to eat and hydrate is not an easy task, and I learned the difference between an Endurance event and an Ultra Endurance event.

I quickly realized that the power I had in my legs up the passes…was still back on the passes, so the real challenge was now to keep the legs cranking, ease back on the power and let my breath and posture carry me into 29 Palms. One final 10 mile climb up to Sheepshole Summit tested the mantra and my mental fortitude but I drew deeply from the well I’ve dug thru WF and again I succeeded in crossing another Mountain Stage. The slightly uphill finish into 29 Palms proved to be an exercise in consistency; check my posture, breathe, hold my cadence, hydrate, repeat.

Crossing the finish line with two of my teammates by my side completed the journey, we congratulated each other, took some pictures, poured back a little champagne and reveled in the moment and what we had accomplished. Few people tackle a race as difficult as the 508 but as a follower of WF it’s simply another ‘mountain pass to cross’…

Thank you Coach for your guidance and support.

Here’s to life!

Head Bowed,

Roberto