The wind rips at Steve Ilg's shoulders as he stabs his carbide-tipped ski poles into the asphalt road. He is a lone figure leaning into the gales along the choppy roads surrounding his home in Baderville.

"If I waited for the wind to die down around here, I'd never get any training done! I figure it's good for resistance-training!" shouts Ilg above the roar of wind as he leans into another gust.

On his feet are inline skates, which he uses to replicate the fierce, poetic tempo of nordic ski racing. Ilg is the two-time Arizona Nordic Ski Champion in a state better known for its saguaro cactus and Super Bowl football team than for ski racing.

It could be another month before the snow is deep enough for Ilg to train directly on cross-country skis. That doesn't matter to this former National Nordic Combined Ski Team member.

"You never get a second chance at your pre-season," shouts Ilg as he pumps his legs and arms in decade-evolved strength and synergy.

Whether it's adding volume to his unique multisport legacy or seeking another layer of sweat-based spiritual depth with his local yoga students, the 47-year-old "multi-sport mutant" as Outside magazine has called him, has many reasons to remain competitive. Outside again: "Ilg has achieved mastery in more sports than most of us will ever try."

'WORLD'S FITTEST HUMAN'

Ilg apparently has reached his childhood dream; to be one of the fittest human beings in the most versatile sense of the phrase. The founder of Wholistic Fitness, author of five books, a celebrity yoga teacher and fitness trainer in Hollywood, Ilg also possesses a body most 20-year-olds would envy. Ultra Cycling magazine named Ilg "The World's Fittest Human," after he helped set a new team course record in the grueling Furnace Creek 508 (miles) through Death Valley in 2004.

Ilg shrugs off the title.

"Oh, they just wrote that because they were fascinated that someone who could actually do pull-ups and a half-decent forward fold could also win an ultra race!"

With over 200 podiums in 23 different sports, including seven world championship appearances in five different sports and two state championships in two different sports, you'd think Ilg would have quenched his appetite for trophies — or "heavy metal" as he calls them.

Nope. In fact, according to Ilg, the podiums are mere side effects from his practice of yoga, which he calls Wholistic Fitness. Ilg considers himself a "feeble fitness monk," and "an endless beginner with only the pursuit of wholeness" as his goal.

SNOW SPORTS HIS PASSION

Of all his passions for multi-disciplined sweat, Ilg's most revered is for the snow sports.

After three decades of world-class winter fitness, Ilg has put a small plug in his ski bum tendencies.

"I have to…I'm a new daddy!"

Ilg plans, however, to defend his state nordic title this winter as well as his creation of the Flagstaff Winter Triathlon in which no one has yet contested him. The latter event combines a 10-kilometer snowshoe race plus two nordic ski races of the Arizona State Nordic Series. The series requires two races in two different nordic ski disciplines; the Classic Style (or Diagonal Stride) and the relatively new, Skate Style (or Freestyle).

Last season, Ilg won the Classic race with a commanding 4-minute gap over former state champion and acclaimed national nordic ski instructor Ken Walters, an icon of southwest nordic skiing.

In the final skate style race, Ilg was passed by Walters at 2 kilometers into the 10-kilometer race.

He was drained from his Top 20 finish the previous week in the Mount Taylor (N.M.) Winter Quadrathlon — a 75-kilometer, 4-sport event (cycling, running, cross-country skiing, and snowhoeing.

"Yeah, I've learned my lesson. As a new daddy, you only have so much recuperative energy from parenting, working, training and competing. I know that Ken (Walters) is gonna be drilling it hard this winter so I gotta be fresher than last year. Plus, there are several fantastic young cyclists that are maturing as nordic ski racers, so a 3-peat is gonna be very hard to accomplish."

For more information and to keep abreast of the Arizona Nordic State Championship Series and many other winter events, visit www.FlagstaffNordicCenter.com.

Tim Allen is the Race Director for the Flagstaff Nordic Center.