Wholistic Fitness

Author’s Note: i still have not received any Race Photos from the Event Staff…let us Journey Upward together as is…

We pick up our story here:
“…for now, as we walked toward Race Registration carrying our swords of long, light skis and light saber-like poles, my heart was thumping with excitement, anxiety, and utter joy. i pause to reflect, “How many other 45-year new fathers of a 4-month old can experience a day like this? i would be one of the first, select athletes to race on this ‘nordic ironman’ course, along the same spiritual paths of snow that i once did, long, long ago? This is a go(o)d day to suffer.”

“So it has come about that all moral and spiritual values are expressed in terms of altitude…The mountain is not merely something externally sublime. It has great historic and spiritual meaning for us: it stands for us as the ladder of life. More, it is the ladder of the soul, and in a curious way, the source of religion.”
– Jan Smut

my ol’ friend, Graysill Mountain, a stalwart warrior rising up and out of Cascade Creek. the Race Course strode gallantly very near this 12,504 beauty. photo by ilg.

As Andrew and i shared a chairlift ride up to the Start Line, the lightness of our nordic skis dangling in air seemed an analgesic balm to our pre-effort nerves. The historical imagery of these mountains and my relationship with them permeated and lengthened my memories. i found it nearly relaxing to realize that i would soon be racing nearly 25 miles on my skis up and down through this transcendent snow-choked wildness. The San Juan Mountains all-ways affect me thusly. It cannot be stemmed. Their friendly, seductive aloofness shifts my feeble brain easily into a higher gear of symbolic and metaphoric fancy. ilg alone, in these Sacred uprisings of granite through which ambrosial creeks and provoking pines grace, is content in ways unspeakable.

As my ski tips kissed the unloading platform, however, all my greater concepts of what these mountains stand for came to a scraping, very disconcerting stop.

Immediately, my buoyant heart sank as i knew within the first flicker of ski on snow that i had magnificently, tragically ‘missed the wax.’ In fact, my high performance skis scraped along the subzero snow like barrelwood across sand.

This was gonna be a long, long morning.

***

My first nordic racing skis were made from Finnish trees and we used pine tar as ‘kick’ wax. I am not kidding you. And You see, Noble Ones, for a nordic ski racer there is one Great Sin. And that sin is great dishonor and disgrace to all norse-based warriorism. The sin is this; missing your wax. The penance for missing one’s wax? Utter, horrible hell. Missing one’s wax turns an elegant, efficient mastery of breath and gliding into an ugly struggle of quicksand-like suffocation. When you’ve nailed your wax? Nordic ski racing is soaring on top of flying daggers. When you’ve missed it? Nordic ski racing is a brutal, plodding affair of exhausting difficulty. Nordic ski racers take no small measure of pride in having an inborn wisdom about the intricacies of snow formulation, humidity and moisture relationships, and dynamic ambient temperature accommodation. We are, in fact, born with an instinct for high performance liquid chromotography.

But then, on Race Days, as some of you may know…the Gods, nay, the Demons, have a remarkable even admirable way of destroying a warrior’s most potent weaponry. i have come to see this as a necessary agent of Divine Design.

***

Shivering in our slick, skin tight racing suits, surrounding by some friends that i have known for decades, i stood still on the second line of the Mass Start of only 20 racers for the 40k event. Travis Brown, the National Mountain Biking Champion (Trek), who designed this course for those like he (physiologic respiratory mutants possessive of a physical strength that morphs into mystical climbing capacities) gave us some final safety cautions. It warmed my heart and made me feel quite Grandfatherly when Travis’ beautiful and very fit wife, Mary, pulled me aside and told me that Travis’s mom had saved training articles that i had authored a long time ago for Travis’s early training education. Travis thanked all of us for toeing the Start Line and we then shoved off in a sea of union-carbide ski tips, sharper than razors, flying toward the first of what would be innumerable uphill terrain.

Andrew got the hole shot and quickly a lead group of eight elite athletes formed within the first kilometer…among them Tad Eliot, Miles VenZara, Scot Simons, and Cale Redpath…all of them champion professional mountain bikers who know the wisdom of Nordic Ski Racing as off-season conditioning following in the pioneering breaths of my friend Carl Swenson who once finished 8th in the World MTB Championships as mere ‘training’ for his multi-Olympic Nordic racing.

On the first gradual downhill, i gleefully allowed this group to separate from me. Reason being two-fold;
1) my skis were not gliding ON TOP OF the snow, but rather digging INTO it…
and
2) my heart rate read 189. not the mathematics i wanted on the first kilometer of 40k climbing race.

***

We skied two laps of about 17k down in the gorgeous meadow of Hermosa Park; a delicious alpine field through which the infancy of Hermosa Creek paints a serpentine rill. Nearly 4-feet of snow blanketed the meadow and the perfectly groomed course that i had always dreamed about in this same Meadow was a fantasy come true. Save for the fact i was skiing as hard possible and each time the course ducked into the shade my speed slowed to essentially a hideous, raspy penguin like waltz slower than a garden snail.

I managed to have only one other 40k skier pass me on this initial pre-fatigue meadow section. Until Molly – a champion collegiate nordic racer – bridged to me. Damn. A girl. Hate that. I mean, don’t get me wrong; ilg LOVES girls! Always have. Except on Race Days. See, there is a normally inert element within a male’s testosterone that becomes ignited into an overwhelming cascade of macho hormonal aggro-ness when we get passed by girls on Race Days. Logically, i know, none of this makes sense. Yet, even the female readers at this point, surely understand how hormonal we Humans can become.

Fortunately, i had already taken myself out of “race mode” and flipped over into “training/survival mode.” i was now skiing for the in-joyment of developing pranic and mystical in-Light-enment. So, as Molly bridged up to me and drafted me for the next 12 kilometers, i was fine with it. i had begun my internalizations and wished only the best for Molly. As long as i beat her.

***

i stopped at the left handed, 40k turn. Here, the 20k racers would turn right and finish their race. My watch read; 1:35…and i had yet to even BEGIN the 10k’s and 2,300′ of herringbone skiing up to 11,500’+. To make matters even more challenging? i had not had a drink since the Start. The frigid temperatures at this altitude had frozen my vital POWERBAR ENDURANCE fluid in my ‘winterized’ Camelbak. Two Race Volunteers helped me out of the blasted, good-for-nothing device which, of course, NEVER freezes on me during training. Damn those Race Day Demons! The volunteers would bring my Camelbak to the Finish Line. Thank you, i attempted to say through frozen jaws that would not cooperate. i sipped two warm Gatorade cups.

“How far until the next fluid?” i mumbled.
“The top,” they nearly sang in unison. Just the reply i feared.
“Very well,” sprang my voice of false nobility, “upward!”

Now, it takes a specific degree of Being to be exhausted and dehydrated at only halfway through a nordic marathon, and, without any fluid, stare up at an enormous mountain before them and think to themselves, “Sure, i can do this…ain’t so baaad.”

That type of Being is known in the common man’s world as, “an imbecile.” That type of Being is also known in certain circles as an ‘ilg’.

So, onward and upward i began to skate up the monolith. “Ain’t so baaaaaad!”

***

As i was being extracted from beneath my frozen Camelbak carcass, Molly had passed me and was already a dim figure dancing up the mountain slope far above me. Evidently HER water bottles had not frozen.

Behind me, a solitary figure was slowly, yet gradually closing on me.

Into my Mantra i dove.

For the next 7 miles i drove myself into that Sacred Mantra until the Sacred Mantra drove what was left of me up that sinuous snake of a ski course that looked to me for all the inner world as a Cobra dancing, seductively urging me up her hide irregardless of the pain. My Mantra work was interrupted only on rare occasion by a sub-Level of kinesthetic awareness to search for and apply the most appropriate skiing technique to the terrain underneath and ahead of me. The technique was agonizingly easy find, cuz it was the only one i could manage on this verticality; the course being of such steep degree (relentlessly linked pitches of over 18%) that only a ‘gliding herringbone’ – the ‘granny gear’ of nordic skate ski racing – was the only applicable technique available to me.

Along the endless climb up this very route that i actually skied as a younger man behind snowmobiles and called, “The Morderbakken” which means “Killer Hill” in Norwegian, the difficulty of my effort adjusted to the logic-numbing efficiency of my Mantra Work and lost its association with any thought of competition. In fact, i had passed Molly several kilometers ago while in my upward trance dance, just breathing to her, “Great job, let’s go!”

To a significant extent, Difficulty (as a prevalent concept) is a pre-condition of the afflicted mind…and Difficulty herself becomes an inner barometer of the degree to which we are willing to sacrifice our egoic composition for a Higher, mystical and artistic quest. In the Tibetan contemplative traditions, this is known as ‘yoga’ or union of inner self with universal self.

Certainly, to Western Sport Experts, other internalizations of Difficulty inherent to sport are used. Yet, to my East/West education, it is Difficulty’s penchant for the apparent separation of “I” consciousness that saturates the egoic “I” with a palpable degree of Divinity…though few Western athletes seem capable of using the interlude of yogic tools to protect, prolong, and most importantly, preserve this acutely intense state of Awareness/Receptivity for later use in solo meditation.

i suppose such substance of intensity-driven thought is precisely why i still choose to be a ‘coach that still does the do’ instead of a more passive teacher. A teacher of Dharma is, i feel, doing great disservice to his or her Students if they themselves do not use Multi-Disciplined Difficulty to keep one within the nucleus of the Enlightenment model instead of the paltry periphery of the pressures of the inner intensity experience.

***

i reached the top of the Race Course (11,533′) by eating snow from pine tree branches. Here, at the top, was the most gorgeous timberline glade you could possibly imagine…a tiny cabin, affectionately known by locals as, The Love Shack, seemed to cower away from the soaring cliffs of Grayrock Peak just an arm’s length away. I again sipped at some more warm Gatorade courtesy of the hardened EMTs who were the Race Volunteers waaaaay up here. Beneath, across, and still higher than where i stood sipping, was an ocean of San Juan summits, hovering like conceptual images…my pain and fallibility had long since receded into an intoxicating inner buffet of interweaving zen m(om)ents. My Mantra had never lost ground and in this in-Stance i was as high as i ever had been.

Then along skied Molly.

Jesusmothermaryofgod..what is WRONG with this woman? i mean, i’ve been stalked by chicks before, yet, this is getting ridiculous!

“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this, Molly,” i said as she skied up the final few meters of the mountain, “the other racers are beginning to talk.”

i was sort of depressed when i saw how quick she was to laugh. We now had been racing our hearts out for 3 hours and entire mountains together and she looked none the worse for wear. She was, in fact, smiling…

“Oh my GOD! It is SOOOOO BEAUTIFUL UP HERE!” she beamed, white teeth shimmering with the snow around her.

“You any good at downhills on these skate skis?” i asked.

“No..I am very tentative,” she admitted. Not a great quality to have at this station, since, the only way down is our ski course that drops like a luge run down what would be double black-diamond alpine ski runs for 2,000 feet.

“Okay, i’ll give her a go first, then.”

“Be my guest,” she replied. It was by far the easiest pass i’ve ever been granted in a nordic race.

I skated out of what i visualized as the “Start House” and threw myself down the slope. This is ilg-terrain. Regardless of how fatigued my lungs and limbs may be, ilg can ski downhills on nordic skate skis as fast as most can ski on alpine skis.

Entering the first dizzying headwall in a full-throttle Bode Miller downhill tuck and cornered the first of many screaming fast hairpins faster than a Porsche, i never saw Molly again until the Finish. My testosterone level thus returning to normalcy. All was still go(o)d in ilgsville.

After the first drop of 1,500′ feet (can you say, EARNING YOUR TURNING?), there was a, get this, 8-minute tuck section! That’s right, bucko! Chair Pose for a solid 8 minutes on 3-hour pre-fatigued legs? And you wonder why i teach HP Yoga in the manner i do?!

After the long tuck, i unfolded on legs that seemed to belong to another Realm, and V-1’d up the final kilometer to the Finish Line.

Dehydrated and defeated by much more fitter skiers than i, my interlude with Memory and Divinity came to an end.

Win?
Not even in the ballpark.
Tad Eliot, US National Team Member, won the race in an absolutely incomprehensible time of 2:09. It took me 1:35 just to get out of the Valley Loops!

Yet,
Quit?

i did not.

i finished 11th overall, 2nd in 45+ Age Group.

my time was 3 hours and 23 minutes.

my average heart rate was (take a breath); 174.

Molly’s average heart rate? 148. go figure.

***

The post-race party at Hoody’s down at Purgatory was pure delight…like i was invited into the Realm of Divine Nordic Brother and Sisterhood…i got to hang out with all the good-looking studs and babes that populate this lofty realm of national and world-class nordic and mountain biking endurance athletes. Even my childhood ski coach, Mike Eliot – father of Tad – was there…fit as ever, still making events like these possible among these treasured peaks.

As i strode into the shock of twilight cold, my legs felt lean and capable. My breath came easy from deeply fit lungs. For a few brief moments, i felt like a genuine Human Being…capable, light, and enduring.

My eyes turned upward…Graysill Mountain winking down at me like a Goddess, Her grand summit adorned still in a niche of heaven sent light…i felt one with it all.

On this evening of all evenings…i was yogi.

Mountain yogi.

“If among the objects of the world of spirit there is something fixed and unalterable, great and illimitable, something from which the beams of revelation, the streams of knowledge pour into the mind like water into a valley, it is to be symbolized by a mountain.”
– al-Ghazali (1058-1112)

***

COMING UP NEXT:
My Return To My Childhood Ski Hill; Hesperus Hill!

***
2008 INAUGURAL TOUR de SKI RACE RESULTS

1 -Tad Eliot
2.09.22

2 – Miles VenZara
2.19.05

3- Travis Brown
2.20.27

4 – Cale Redpath
2.33.43

5 – Scott Simmons
2.41.28

6 – Rick Callies
2.41.48

7 – Andrew Ferguson
2.47.38

8 – JP Bauer
2.54.55

9 – Tom Ober
3.00.35

10 – Greg Lewis
3.04.50

11 – Steve “Coach” Ilg
3.23.31

12 – Molly Hummel
3.25.43
1st female 12th overall…

13 – Kenny When
3.38.29

14 – Gary Gianniay
3.51.09

15 – Ted Compton
3.56.07

dnf’s:
Carol Morse
David Banga

***
SPECIAL THANKS TO:

Bob Rule – the owner of
San Juan Cat Skiing and the master groomer.