He’s not an ordinary athlete. When Outside magazine featured Steve Ilg on their cover in May of 1992 he became both famous and infamous. The cover, as Ilg laughingly admits, was later voted by readers as one of Outside magazine’s least favorites. Maybe it was the finely coiffed mullet he sported or the cover’s brash title, claiming he could break you. Maybe it was the unsettling look of serene confidence on his face.

Moving past the cover I read about a sports polymath, a multi-sport mutant according to another article. Ilg was extraordinary at a number of pursuits from running to biking to climbing to a multitude of winter sports. But what truly intrigued me was that he preached with an uncommon passion a lifestyle that rejected sport specialization.

At the time I was training for my first triathlon and had found a new level of fitness by combining biking and swimming with my love for running. Combining the sports I felt not only stronger in each but more durable and healthier than ever.

Ilg though was preaching for a life that went beyond cross-training. He believed and is now even more adamant that sport is a noble and even spiritual endeavor through which we can more fully experience life as a whole. His ideas of Wholistic Fitness combined sport disciplines, yang endeavors he calls them, with the yin of meditation and yoga.

I was so intrigued by this approach that I interviewed him for a regional magazine. Some 25 years later we reconnected for this podcast.

Ilg at 55 is no less strong. Last winter, from his home in Durango, Colorado he raced in events ranging from 5K to 50k. He competed in snowshoeing, ski mountaineering, fat tire bike and winter decathlons. Remarkably, he made it to the podium of every race he entered. Incredibly, he won seven events outright.

He, maybe with just of touch of irony, often refers to himself as “Feeble Ilg” and he does project humility and gratitude for what life has brought. Yet he’s also fiercely competitive and embodies what he calls the athlete’s warrior spirit.

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Your comments, as always, are very much appreciated.



Resources:

Total Body Transformation: A 3-Month Personal Fitness Prescription For a Strong, Lean Body and a Calmer Mind

The Winter Athlete: Secrets of Wholistic Fitness for Outdoor Performance

The Outdoor Athlete: Total Training for Outdoor Performance

Health Mark IVO18110 Yogacise 2-In-1 Yoga and Exercise Bench

Steve Ilg on Facebook

Steve’s website: Wholistic Fitness: Fitness as a spiritual practice

Show Notes:

How as we age our focus changes from yang to yin

To be athletic is to be supple and strong, enduring and capable

The addiction to comfort: how it severs our connection to wholeness

Everything is training, even brushing your teeth

The 5 Noble Fitness Disciplines

The 4 Lifestyle Principles

The athlete as warrior

If you are not feeling the yin you may not be training hard enough

No easy days: every day is challenging but in a different way

Racing Iron Horse Bicycle Classic, from Durango to Silverton and beyond

The importance of morning rituals. Poop early

You are only as young as your spine

Holy hunger… why its good to be hungry

Don’t eat fearfully, eat sacredly

Shifting to pranic nutrition

Ilg’s new book

 

 

One response to “Steve Ilg: Athlete as spiritual warrior”

  1. Oscar says:

    Thanks for the great article

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Bob loves running the Garden of the Gods’ hills.

Bob McAndrews, who turned 77 this past November, loves to run up mountains.

He has run up 14,115-foot Pikes Peak literally hundreds of times. Often he’ll hitch-hike down and some of the stories he tells about the tourists who drove him down would make your knees shake.

He’s run the Pikes Peak Marathon and Ascent 24 times, winning his age group 11 of those times. He has set a number of age group records, one of which still stands.

Bob ran up Mount Washington, one of the toughest climbing events in running, coming in second in his age group. After the age of 60 he posted age group wins on Pikes Peak, La Luz Ascent in Albuquerque, the Vail Hill Climb and Turquoise Lake in Leadville. He’s raced internationally and successfully competed with the world’s best mountain runners.

At 77 he continues to run local races often beating the winners in age groups much younger than him.

Bob has become a mountain running legend.

I’ve known Bob for a long time, ever since my second year in college. And, over the years we’ve shared many a trail and a few races along the way. During his fastest years I shied away from training with Bob (unless he was injured or recovering from some debilitating effort) because his pace and intensity would almost inevitably take me too far out of my body’s comfort zone, leading to injury, occasionally, or more commonly, exhaustion.

But these were small prices to pay for our long talks ranging from world events to the impact of culture on running performance to the latest odd-ball running regimen currently in vogue.

Sometimes our conversations veered to personal or business problems and Bob, with insight and compassion, was a ready listener and thoughtful adviser.

The only topic I studiously avoided was racing. From our very first runs I learned, painfully, that any mention of a past or future race would send our pace skyward and I would soon be in deep oxygen debt while Bob effortlessly continued his racing saga or strategy.

What has made Bob an inspiring friend, not only for me but for a host of local and regional runners, is that he’s a real runner. He’s not just someone who runs. He’s a student of the sport. He can talk intelligently and at length about atrial fibrillation, which has slowed him down, V02 max and what you need to do to increase your lactate threshold. He’s an expert on injury and recovering, which he does spectacularly well.

It’s a real privilege to bring you our conversation on many of these topics on the inaugural edition of The Age Stronger Show.

I hope you find it as enjoyable to listen to as it was to record.

Your comments and feedback are not only welcome and important but are vital in order to make the show better.

Please take a moment (it would be a huge help) and share what you liked most about the show and if you have some encouraging suggestions for improvement, I’d like to hear those too.

If you enjoy this episode, please take a moment and give it a rating on iTunes. I know this is a big ask but it really helps to get great guests. And it also makes the show more visible to others who might like to join us in aging stronger. Thanks in advance!

Below you’ll see an outline of some of the topics we covered and some of the resources mentioned.



Show Notes & Resources

Victor Frankel, Man’s Search for Meaning

Triple Crown

History of running at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

Atrial fibrillation

Culture, sports and running

Tarahumara runners in Mexico

Running and autoethnography

Running, aging, Joseph Campbell and the hero’s journey

Becoming a mountain runner

Dealing with the loss of speed and competitiveness

As an older athlete dealing with injuries and illness

How Bob’s training has changed as he’s gotten older

Bob’s weekly training schedule

The importance of speedwork.

The Pikes Peak Road Runner’s Winter Series, using it to get fit

Cherry Creek Sneak

Staying trim

Thoughts about mortality

The role of running in staying intellectually alive

The effect of having a physiological dependency on running

Inspiring running books by George Sheehan, Amby Burfoot and Joe Friel

Running and culture. The Kenyans, Japanese, Spanish, Italian and U.S. running

cultures.

How Japanese corporate sponsorship helps older runners

How the Pikes Peak Marathon needs to change to accommodate older runners

Peakus Interruptus, quitting at the top

Why he switched to Hoka running shoes

Why use so many different kinds of shoes, including Icebugs and Micro Spikes and how this may help avoid injury

Legacy as a runner

Bob’s running journals and how he uses them

The other dreaded “C” word

Recapturing lost fitness

Hopes for Cherry Creek Sneak and Bolder Boulder

Times he’d like to run and things that can upset the best laid plans

Running the Pikes Peak Marathon Ascent at age 80

How you are your own experiment

Training plans and milestones for upcoming races

Cross-training, strength training. How much he exercises per day

Still running at 90?

How he feels right now

Younger running friends

Enough said. Time to get out for a run

 

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