wellness
GET YOUR SPRING TRAINING ON TARGET WITH THESE FIVE SUMMER FITNESS-EVENTS By Bill Nurge, M.A. Exercise Physiology, Head Coach HardCore Training Center
As much as my wife Naty and I love everything about Nordic skiing, by the time spring rolls around we're always ready to shift athletic gears, set some new goals, and start training for our summer sports: hiking, mountain biking, and trail running. We’ve found that targeting the summer fitness events we are going to participate in helps us stay on track with the types of training that will benefit us most. Setting goals now is the best way to kickstart your spring training program and guarantee copious quantities of summer fun and challenges. Above: HardCore Training Center's Bill and Naty Nurge.
Back in the early 1990s when I moved to Ketchum, I tried for the first time a series of summer biathlon (running & rifle marksmanship) races. The exhilaration of doing something different—from biking and swimming--coupled with winning a new mountain bike and 10,000 rounds of ammo—had me totally hooked. Soon thereafter, I took my beginner biathlon rifle and running shoes to the Summer Biathlon Nationals
and unwittingly pocketed $3,000 for 2nd place. Winter biathlon was not so kind. My two-year-old neophyte nordic skiing & rifle marksmanship was good enough for a top five finish at the ’91 NorAm Championships, but my ultimate goal of competing in the ’92 Winter Olympics never came to fruition. Although I narrowly missed a berth on the Olympic Team, I learned many invaluable lessons in the process of “failing" that
serve me well a quarter of a century later. I learned that it’s better to have big goals and fail than have no goals and never know what it’s like to suffer, sacrifice and sweat for something that’s important. I learned that success and failure are two sides of the same coin and it really doesn’t matter which side lands up. The important thing is to earn the coin; one workout, one challenge, one day at a time. Because at the end of the day/year/life, the accolades svpn-mag.com
185