articles: TESTIMONIALS
Greg Miller, 20 year Breathplay user
Ian: After receiving the gospel of Breathplay directly during many long training rides with you in the mid-eighties, I have had too many great experiences with it to even begin to tell.
I primarily use Breathplay in cycling, as a cat 1 road racer and expert level mountain biker. I would conservatively estimate my race total, since learning Breathplay's basics, at around 600 races (30 X 20 years). I am most proud of my 66th place (out of 177 Cat 1's) in the 2002 National Elite Championships in Nashville. Not bad for a 37 year old father of three, if I don't say so myself.
I have also used Breathplay during two 12 hour solo mountain bike races and while rowing in an 8-man shell for the Oak Ridge Rowing Association. My mountaineering trips are always super rigorous, and I have used Breathplay on Olympus, Rainier, Iron Peak, Elinor, Washington, Gray's Peak, Leconte (in TN and WA), Dome, and many others. As an athlete and adventurer, I find Breathplay to be an indispensibly useful piece of my rack, as a climber would say.
Attached are pictures from two very recent adventures in which Breathplay was integral, the Georgia State Pro,1,2 Criterium Championship, in September, and the Ptarmigan Traverse, in August, 2003. The criterium was chock full of Southeastern elite riders, and using Breathplay (and twenty years' accumulated fitness) I was able to play a major role in the outcome of the race. On the Ptarmigan, which is a classic mountaineering traverse of the North Cascades Wilderness, I used breathplay on the many long, steep slogs from pass to pass; on the exposed granite of the summits we acended; and on the fearsome glacier crossings. In particular, our crossing of the Dana Glacier gave me the greatest opportunity to test the mind-body Breathplay benefits. As we traversed the steep, broken up, icy, crevasse-riddled glacier, my right crampon popped off.
The gravity of the situation settled into my soul. Without that crampon, I had no way to get off the glacier, which was covered in patches of steep, crevassed glacial ice. I refitted it, and overtightened the strap, breaking it. I was in a very precarious position, exposed to the possibility of a 1000' drop into the valley below. The Ptarmigan route is remote, so that rescue in the event of ermegency is a questionable proposition. The exposure one feels is multi-faceted. Breathplay helped me maintain my calm, helped me focus on the task at hand: repairing and adjusting the crampon.
I was able to work through the crisis without panic, and finished the Dana off by ascending the beautiful peak of Spire Point with my climbing partners later that afternoon. The attached picture was taken a few hours after the broken crampon episode, and as you can see, I was cruising, feeling no pain, up a long, steep pitch on the upper reaches of the Dana Glacier, using Breathplay in full aerobic mode at altitude with a heavy pack. After 20 years, Breathplay is integrated into my everyday behaviour, and into my not so everyday adventures. I look forward to helping spread the word. Thanks for showing me how to use this awesome tool