RUNNING ON WATER

Off Season Sweat... because, "You never get a second chance at your Off Season"

Our USSSA Fitness Columnist, Coach Ilg racing for his new team; Red Rock Racers, manufactured a scintillating victory in hellishly hot conditions at the 26-mile, 5,800' Bill McLain Memorial Sandia Crest HillClimb recently in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Below is his Race Report meant to inspire your Off Season Training! Coming up next in RUNNING ON WATER; Pre Season Strength Training for Snowshoers!

Hey, it ain't Snowshoe Racing, yet the Hurt feels VERY FAMILIAR...and that is the key to Off Season Snowshoe Training...you gotta keep the Sweat and Spirit cranking until the snow flies." Coach is shown above midway through the tormentingly long climb that finishes at 10,500'.

photos by: by Heidi Snell/Visual Escapes Photography

The best way to enjoy snowshoe racing is to come into the snowshoe season carrying a high level of cardiovascular and strength fitness. Over the next few columns of RUNNING ON WATER, we will share some "multidisciplined" trekking along my proven Path of Wholistic Fitness® that I know will produce top results for snowshoe racers, as well as simply provide a more meaningful and fun level of conditioning for those snowshoers who do not race.

I want to start off our "off season" journey by giving you an emotional glimpse into my main "off season" discipline; bike racing. I promise you, for early "off season" conditioning for snowshoe racers; racing bikes cannot be beat. It is that simple. Bike racing stresses the cardiovascular system without undo joint concussion as in, say, running. Also, heart rate monitorization and overall training amplitude is much more intelligently facilitated within the cycling disciplines. I usually divide my "off season" cycling into two seasons; spring and fall. The account below tells a tale of my final spring race which occurs around Mid-June. Then, I take a "decompression phase" where I take some time off the bike, ramp up my HP Yoga® Practice before entering my "fall campaign" of bike racing which ends in Mid-September with the State Championships. At that point, my cardiovascular fitness is superb and it is just a matter of morphing the cycling fitness into run fitness to prepare my joints and snowshoe-specific musculature and neuronal fabric for another GREAT season of Snowshoe Racing and nordic ski racing.

So, which is better: Road Cycling or Mountain Biking?

Answer is: BOTH!

Okay, to be more specific = Road cycling is easier to gauge and maintain your Intensity and build a marvelous base of aerobic fitness and power (strength + speed equals power). Mountain biking is a superior metabolic switch because it demands more upper body strength and neural fitness (agility/balance, etc). Mountain biking creates strength endurance; the capacity of a muscle to maintain generation of maximal output...think "steady state". Road cycling develops more of what I call, "surge protection fitness" - your capacity to hang with the inevitable 'surging' of trying to stay with the lead group of racers (be it running, cycling, or snowshoeing).

In my books, I have created several fantastic cycling and off season snowshoe programs which can detail for you, a wonderfully effective program to follow this summer. Right now, I want you to enjoy the emotional spirit of my last spring race this season to demonstrate the importance of keeping your Inner FIRE for sweat and spirit as strong as possible during the "off season."

In the next RUNNING ON WATER, I will explain and offer you a program for "Pre Season Strength Training."

Enjoy!

Namaste,

Coach Ilg

THE BILL McCLAIN MEMORIAL SANDIA CREST HILL CLIMB

JUNE 7, 2006

ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO -

Coming into this race, I knew i had to do my best to dismantle the legs and lungs of the peleton (the large group of racers) 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 Team 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 road racing; wind roaring in your face, road debris, non-existent road shoulders,...and the heat! OOOOF!!

Fortunately, I and my breakaway companion's effort did not go unrewarded. Heading left onto the Ski Road proper, he and I had managed to maintain a 1 minute, 30 second lead over the chasing peleton. From this left hand turn, a relentless; 15-miles of narrow road screams up to the 10,500' summit...classic, classic climbing! As the really steep climbing began, I could not handle the pace of my breakaway companion, so, before I exploded a lung, I wished him luck and could only watch as he pedaled up, up and away from me. It was time for me to go within myself. I had to ride at my highest sustainable output (strength endurance) without dipping into oxygen debt...essentially, from a physiological standpoint; I was snowshoe racing in June! This is why it is important for you to race bikes - don't just ride them, RACE them - during the Off Season. You must mimic the physiologic demand at this point in the off season, not the specific demand.

As the hurt I placed upon myself continued, I used yogic breathing and meditations to just do my best to keep racing and not just surviving. In the Yogic tradition, this art of "drawing your senses within" is known as, Pratyhara.

Coach Ilg thanking his Snowshoe Fitness at the Finish Line! First Place in 40+, 4th Overall in Cat.4!

Within 6 miles of the Finish Line I was caught and dropped all too easily by a young kid that had flown the coop of the peleton. His legs and lungs were far fresher than mine, since he had spent most of the race within 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.

"Stay confident, ilg," I told myself...and merged into Pratyhara once again.

Not longer then 5 minutes later I heard a heaving behind me. Yet another kid had bridged to my wheel from the peleton now chomping its way up the mountain behind me.

I was getting really hot, tired, and quite frankly, pissed off by now. I did not want to be caught and dragged down on the upper slopes of the mountain like a wildebeest on the Serengeti.

Through a sting of sweat soaked eyes, I looked behind me and growled at the young kid on my rear wheel,

"Are you a Cat 4?"

At first, his only reply was gasping. Then, "Uhhh, yeah..." followed by more gasping...

"You wanna at least take a pull then?" 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 Ponderosa tree with a Boy Scout Hatchet, yet, the miles eventually passed though the pain never did. 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. It was all I could do to watch yet another set of young calves dance upon the pedals away from me. 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. He or she learn not to 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 catching me from behind. The Finish Line finally arrived and I crossed it, chalking up a 40+ Victory for my team and a 4th Overall in the Cat.4 Category.

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.

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/

RUNNING ON WATER: THE SNOWSHOE WARRIOR Archive

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RUNNING ON WATER: THE SNOWSHOE WARRIOR! Edition 6
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