Wholistic Fitness

rode the passes today for the first time “this spring”…

i put “this spring” in apostrophe’s because there is still 4 1/2 feet of snow lining the road to Silverton,  the Finish Line for Memorial’s Day 40th running of the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic

today’s workout:  29.2 miles

over Coal Bank Pass (10,640′, average gradient 6.5%) then tag the summit of Molas Pass (10,910′, average gradient 4.9%), turn around and re-climb Coal Bank…start and finishing from Durango Mountain Resort (8,793′).

stats:

total mileage; 29.2 miles (doesn’t sound like much does it?  read on, Noble Warrior!)

conditions: solo with wind…sunny, temp; 49 degrees

43 minutes to the summit of Coal Bank

1:14 to the summit of Molas providing an average speed of 11.8 mph to Molas

2 hours and 8 seconds total ride time back to DMR

total average speed: 14.5 mph

max speed: 45.3 mph

total vertical feet of climbing: 2,171′

here are some pics i took for you…may it help inspire your workout tomorrow and i hope i see you on the Start Line of the Iron Horse Bicycle Race  next Memorial Day if not this one…the Iron Horse is one of the Three Sacred Sweat Sport Pilgrimages of WF…

Our backyard garden in Durango.  At 6,512′ things are beginning to look a wee bit like spring…Ananda peeled off our winter-long layer of leaf mulch to find our strawberries, kale, and potato sprouts…well, sprouting!  Let me tell you, after these Rock Mountain winter’s seeing green sprouts in your garden is like, as our friend Rachel puts it,  “like hearing your baby’s heartbeat for the first time. There’s life in there!”

However,  up after bicycling up to 10,912′?   It’s a whole different Realm…the rarefied air up here is pungent with what i feel is the most potent pran on Turtle Island…see, according to Western scientists, high altitudes like these are less dense, or is rarefied, in relation to air at lower layers.

…What they have yet to understand is the pranic condensation which naturally accumulates within these lofty realms where only angels (and sometimes like today…ilg) soar!   this is part of the Snowdown Massif…revealing the “Naked Lady Colouir” as the obvious right-angling swath of still very deep 20’+ snow…ilg has danced many a dance with the Naked Lady…now this to me is the most sexy and seductive of all Yoni’s…however, that’s just a lifelong mountain yogi talkin’…

North Twilight Peak (13,075′) as shot from my handlebars while ascending the backside of Coal Bank Pass…Dewachen actually, honestly, did the Special Effects for this photo all by her 3 year-old self, including the Sepia Tone and double plated matte/vignette compensation!

May all your sweat tomorrow be true,

ec