I was a few days shy of 40 on the day Steve Ilg clutched my limb. I was almost middle-aged, laid out like a lab specimen in a New Mexico gym, and quite sure as the vise tightened that I was going to pass the milestone of my birthday with a left leg capable of bending the wrong way at the knee. It was then that I paused to consider again the array of follies that can attend an otherwise reasonable life.

In The Ilgiad, Donald Katz takes us along on his path to physical fitness as he trains for a triathlon under the guidance of his personal sports-performance trainer, Steve Ilg.
The Ilgiad is one of the fascinating profiles featured in The King of the Ferret Leggers and Other True Stories by award-winning journalist Donald Katz, available in audio exclusively at audible.com. It was originally published in Outside, May 1992.