photos by: by Heidi Snell/Visual Escapes Photography
"While cranking up the long hot climb and knowing the entire peleton was right behind me, i kept recalling my training efforts on Snowbowl Road and my favorite long mountain bike climbs in Flag like "Weenie Walk," "Waterline," and "Little Bear." Coach - who teaches High Performance Yoga® here in Flag on Wednesday evenings (see PDF Flyer on main RRR website) is shown above midway through the tormentingly long climb that finishes at 10,500'. "I knew i had to do my best to dismantle the legs and lungs of the peleton before the real steep climbing began, so, i did my best to launch a Lance Armstrong like attack on the very first hill of the course!...i drew one young guy from Gerolsteiner with me who was a climbing specialist...i pulled the hardest over the 11 mile "lead up climbs" of Tijeras Canyon" to the Ski Road proper. It was typically brutal New Mexican stuff; wind roaring in your face, road debris,...and the heat! Jesus!! The peleton was only about 1 minute, 30 seconds down from our two man break when we took the left hand turn onto the Ski Road. From this left hand turn, it's relentless; 15-miles of narrow road climbing up to the summit...classic, classic climbing! Once the really steep climbing began, i could not handle the pace of my breakaway companion, so i wished him luck and went within myself. I used yogic breathing and meditations to just do my best to keep racing and not just surviving."
Coach Ilg flying the RRR colors at the Finish Line! First Place in 40+, 4th Overall in Cat.4!
"I was able to get to within 6 miles of the Finish Line before i was caught and dropped all too easily by a young kid that fly up to me from the energy saving speed of the peleton. There was no way i could handle his pace, either. He was too fresh and i too worked from my long breakaway efforts in the wind. Not longer then 5 minutes later, i heard a heaving behind me and saw yet another kid had bridged to my wheel from the peleton chomping its way up the mountain behind me.
I was getting really hot, tired, and pissed off by now;
"Are you a Cat 4?" I growled at him through the sting of my sweat soaked eyes...
Breathing, gasping, gasping...then, "Uhhh, yeah..." followed by more breathing, breathing, gasping...
"Can you take a pull then, please?" I asked rather politely, I thought.
Not what he wanted to hear. I guess I had been the carrot dangling in front of him this whole race and now he figured he would just take his Easy Boy Recliner position and suck my draft for a few miles.
Not.
So, I did a little out of the saddle squirt away from him, making him chase me down.
He evidently got the point,
"Okay, okay...let's work together," was all he gasped.
For the next 3 miles we did just that. I gained my second companion in suffering for the day, as we began to chip away at the tremendous mountain. Our chipping away felt a bit like chopping down a Flagstaff Ponderosa with a Boy Scout Hatchet, yet, the miles eventually passed though the pain never stopped. I learned he was 24 years old, from my hometown of Durango, Colorado via Michigan, i think. We kept in-couraging each other as we stood, sat, and spun our way up the ever-increasing altitude and steepness of the mountain.
Within 2.5 miles of the Finish Line, i had to work through a rather tough "spot of bother," as Paul Sherwyn might put it. I couldn't hang and lost the kid's wheel. Fuck. And I say that with full yogic compassion for myself. It was all i could do to watch his young calves dance upon the pedals away from me...leaving me to my own Inner Practice of breath and posture and positive Self Talk to limit any more attacks from behind. As Roger Federer would say in his French Open Finals loss to the clay-court phenom, Nadal; "I was not able to come up with the shots, so I do not have to worry about it." In other words, a champion learns to stay in the moment and not waste precious energy over what did not work. That is what I now had to do; just keep a'goin, keep a'goin, keep a'goin as the Mountain Paiutes would say.
Fortunately, I was able to keep a'goin at a high enough average speed (around 8.5 mph) to thwart any more young guns blasting my rear end from behind. The Finish Line arrived and I crossed it, chalking up a 40+ Victory for Red Rock Racing and a 4th Overall in the Cat.4 Division.
This beautiful race, now named for Bill McClain, the Team Director of New Mexico VeloSport (NMVS), should be on your Race Calendar next season. Bill McClain, God Bless His Soul, was the man who invited me to race for NMVS when i lived in Rio Rancho, New Mexico working on my book, THE WINTER ATHLETE. I think Bill was in Heaven on that day two weekends ago, cool and happy as a cucumber, and maybe even smiling as he watched me power up the mountain climb now named in his honor.
I devote my victory to my new team in Flagstaff; Red Rock Racing, and i devote my effort on that day to Bill McClain's Warrior Spirit who sang through my sweat and who will always be near to my heart.
May all Beings everywhere realized the precious nature of being Brave and Elegant in that what they do...and, what they encounter during their EarthDance.
See you in yoga class,
Namaste,
coach ilg
ps: you can enjoy the world acclaimed online journal of Coach Ilg at: DIRECT LINES and have unconditional access to nearly 2,000 articles by Coach on all topics of body/mind/spiritual fitness...
Coach Ilg's blog;
Direct Lines can be found at: http://www.wholisticfitness.com/
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