From Winter to Summer Racing... a Wholistic Perspective...

by Coach Steve Ilg RYT | USCF | CPT
author of "Total Body Transformation."

Within my next 24 hours, feeble ilg toes the Start Line of my first of 8 Championship Cycling Races; a 15-mile Time Trial with over 600' of elevation gain.

Minor Detail: I've not been on my road, mountain, or time trial bike save for 4x since, uh…well, OCTOBER of 2015!!

Breaking it down: I've ridden my Mountain Bike 2x, my TT bike 2x (racing it during the Pagosa Winter Quadrathlon in March and in the local Dead Squirrel - don't ask- TT in April). Road bike? uh, once…a club ride in, what was it? March? Early April?

Yet? To lifelong warrior of Wholistic Fitness®? Such an obvious lack of sport specific training has not fired one neuron of nervousness from within my cells for tomorrow evening's Time Trial.

Here is why...

My Tibetan Meditation Teacher, Dudjom Rinpoche taught me that such overwhelming moments of perceived inadequacy make ideal Bardo (Death Entry) Training…for being underprepared for stunningly unknown sensations is precisely what it's like when we cannot take another inhale. You with me? Rinpoche said that entering into unknown, under-trained for terrain, "Is like taking a hood off your head. What boundless spaciousness and relief! This is the supreme seeing: seeing what was not seen before.”

Making the transition from my priority of Winter Racing (nordic classic/skate, snowshoe, fat tire snow racing, ski mountaineering racing, winter quadrathlons/multisport) into the far more mundane (to me) summer racing of trail, road, and cycling racing is a precious threshold whereupon i get to see what most sport-specific athletes rarely, if ever see; the Connectedness of ALL SPORTS where everything opens, expands, and becomes crisp, clear, brimming with potentiality, vivid with wonder and freshness. It is as if the roof of my mind fluffed off like the shedding of a Western Rattler's skin… Awakening me to a new seal broken where I can ply my winter sports fitness into a new-again world inhabited by sport-specific creatures whose postures, words, and way of beingness telltale a Path way too trodden.

The Teaching of this offering to you on this sacred day? Is once again; Wholeness. Ilg ain't scared or intimidated by toeing tomorrow's Start Line on a Time Trial Bike against those whom have been pedaling incessantly like rats on a wheel all winter! Instead? As the official counts down my start; "Racer Ready, 3-2-1..GO!"

Oh, Ilg will "GO" ...

Confidence is born from Training.

Though i've not sat in a bicycle saddle a FRACTION of the time compared to the mighty warrior brothers tomorrow? Ilg will be smiling upon my aero bars, hunkered low against Sister Wind, snapping my thighs at the top tube, recollecting my times offering my sweat upon the scared snows while ski racing, snowshoeing, and doing the MULTISPORT DANCE!

Wholeness lives in versatility.

Long live,

Long Love versatility!

Never count out your 'lack of specific training'…that's an illusion of the sport-specific Clans…so predictable in their lack of wholeness, in their lack of trust in It All...

GO Noble Warrior(ess)! Toe that Start Line!

For you have in your cells the highest Nutrition: BodyHealth!

And you have in your spirit the highest Spiritual Nutrition: Faith in Wholeness!

I'll let you know how i fared tomorrow, if you let me know that YOU did what it took to Toe The Start Line of YOUR unique race -competitive or not...

Deal?

Let's DO this thang!