click on pics for enhanced frozen snot and drool...welcome to Nordic Cold Sweat, baby!
at the end of my snowshoe race on Day Two, ilg was feeling the effects of racing in 2 sports across 2 states...it was a Divine Start to my most cherished season...the season of the snows. photo by Ananda.
After my nordic ski race in Durango, i hooked up with locals Ferggie, Miles, and former National Mountain Biking Champion Travis Brown (who puts on the ultimate nordic ultra: Tour de Ski two weekends hence) to skate ski out the newly enhanced North Loop. North Loop is now cut and groomed in a dazzling serpentine line among lodgepole pines and aspens turning back toward the Nordic Center only when it comes within spitting distance of the Cascade Creek ice climbing area. After putting in another apres-race 15k, we headed down to Durango, at which point - fasting - i bolted in my own car back to Flag.
My sole/soul nourishment for the 5 hour trip across the snow-covered high desert was an audio recording of Paramahansa Yogananda's, AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI, gifted to me from Ferggie for the drive.
The great yogi's words - spoken exquisitely through the raja voice of Ben Kingsley - proved divine nutrition which far surpassed any need for physical food even given the fact of my high caloric expenditure of the morning. Contemporary nutritional experts would flip out if they knew of ilg's antics in this arena, however, that is only because they themselves have yet to practice that which must be practiced to shift from the archaic muscle & oxygen system toward that of the Pranic Saturation available to all Beings at all Times.
The 300 mile meditation shifted into a religious melody of Brahmanic Grace so intoxicating, that it was only near Tuba City whereupon i was able to fidget with my cell phone to let the girls know Daddy was a little over an hour away from home.
It was, without a shadow of a doubt, a drive not across a desert but rather a deeper drive within my Enlightenment potentiation. Unforgettable. 5 hours disappeared into what felt like 90 minutes. My body, feeling no effect from the racing, was as young as the evening beginning to slide across my Beloved Southwest.
Soon, Doko Oosliid carved her magnificence into the final composition of this most splendid pilgrimage.
Arriving back at the Temple H(om)e just in time for Dewa's bath,
it would be just a sliver of a moment before i would toe another Start Line
to yet another Pilgrimage...my own event; the Kahtoola sponsored, "Snow-Or-No" Showshoe Race...a USSSA National Qualifier.
My sole/soul nourishment for the 5 hour trip across the snow-covered high desert was an audio recording of Paramahansa Yogananda's, AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI, gifted to me from Ferggie for the drive.
The great yogi's words - spoken exquisitely through the raja voice of Ben Kingsley - proved divine nutrition which far surpassed any need for physical food even given the fact of my high caloric expenditure of the morning. Contemporary nutritional experts would flip out if they knew of ilg's antics in this arena, however, that is only because they themselves have yet to practice that which must be practiced to shift from the archaic muscle & oxygen system toward that of the Pranic Saturation available to all Beings at all Times.
The 300 mile meditation shifted into a religious melody of Brahmanic Grace so intoxicating, that it was only near Tuba City whereupon i was able to fidget with my cell phone to let the girls know Daddy was a little over an hour away from home.
It was, without a shadow of a doubt, a drive not across a desert but rather a deeper drive within my Enlightenment potentiation. Unforgettable. 5 hours disappeared into what felt like 90 minutes. My body, feeling no effect from the racing, was as young as the evening beginning to slide across my Beloved Southwest.
Soon, Doko Oosliid carved her magnificence into the final composition of this most splendid pilgrimage.
Arriving back at the Temple H(om)e just in time for Dewa's bath,
it would be just a sliver of a moment before i would toe another Start Line
to yet another Pilgrimage...my own event; the Kahtoola sponsored, "Snow-Or-No" Showshoe Race...a USSSA National Qualifier.
The Start arrived without a warm-up for ilg. Rookie, New Daddy mistake. I took the first kilometer as slow as i could while keeping the front runners in sight. Attending the race were three National Class snow-lions; Sly Coons (founder of Tiger Global Athletics who has never lost this race, shown above in yellow), DJ (finished 4th place in Nationals last year; above in blue,) and local gazelle Jared (shown above in black/red; winner of Soulstice and Flagstaff Trail Marathon).
This race is event number one for the Flagstaff Winter Triathlon in which i have never been remotely tested. Versatility within winter endurance sports is apparently a rare find. Local 40+ runner, Mark Thurston would set the pace for us 'old guys' i figured. True enough, both he and Tobin (above in red), would eventually pass me out of the Course. i ran on the back of their webs for as long as i could. Thurston, methodically pumping away from Tobin and i on the 3k, 600' infamous "Lava Climb" to nearly 9,000'. With mantra-enforced effort, i hung like a badger onto Tobin pace...yet my knee lift was sinking in Titanic fashion with each stride. The nordic ski skate race of yesterday, plus the extra k's afterward, effectively dismantled the fast-twitch fibers required for snowshoe racing's mandatory, exaggerated knee lift.
i lost Tobin's pace on the final knee-cracking uphill about 2k from the Finish Line...though i did my Noble Best to close the gap through a long meadow stretch, it was not to be...there ain't no glide in Snowshoe Racing and when neural fatigue deepens, the right to fly is revoked and the racer is left in the burning sky of lactic acid pain and heaving lung bardo. photo by Ananda.
I came across the Finish Line in 3rd place in my Age Group, 6th Overall and was pleased. No one that finished in front of me do i consider threats to the Flagstaff Winter Triathlon's other two events; Classic Skiing and Skate Skiing. Daddy done go(o)d...and all was again, well in the high, snowy pines. photo courtesy of NATRA.
HP Yogi Warrior Leaf, Diné, accomplished his first-ever Snowshoe Race using a pair of my old Atlas® snowshoes...he was only a few minutes behind me. This Great Yogi knows how to move with the Wind, knows how to become empowered by Mother Earth......photo courtesy of NATRA.
After the Race, Dewa and 'Baby Kai' fulfilled my spent energy reserves with Love, Laughter, and her contagious Tibetan-rascal antics...photo courtesy of NATRA.
Thus, from all of us Winter Warriors from beneath the Sacred Peak...
including the HP Yogis® which cranked off this Snowshoe race;
Yogis Art, Zak, and Rachael Farmer (who took 1st in the women's 5k!), Yogi Jut (of Agassiz Running Pilgrimage DVD fame), Warrior Leaf, and Mark Thurston...
we wish you...
Love,
Laughter,
Lightness,
and...
Boldness
in that
which you
Love
To
Do...
May Divine Understanding grace thy Practice today...
thank you for supporting my racing...
thank you for supporting this Precious Path
high above the rest...
head bowed,
spine straight...
el coache
the feeblest of the mountain yogis
spine straight...
el coache
the feeblest of the mountain yogis
