Totally Naked Self-Supported Endeavor

(Pic: One of my favorite gems in our Lake Placid house)

Next week I’m headed back to Lake Placid to support my tri-peeps for their IM. Last year’s IMLP trip was ridiculous amounts of fun and we have another great group this year. I’ll be staying in our usual house with Rambonie, Phil, Javier, Bill, Farrah, Gustavo, Michelle, Nathan and Kristine. And now we even have Triboomer right next door! I’m seriously giddy about this. I can’t wait to help my friends by being a sherpa, a cook, and a cheerleader. As an extra bonus, I get to hang with Kate Lavoie and Janet Brode (two of the greatest tri-wifes ever).

So I figured that since I’ll be there, and since the course will be marked, and since I love to train… I’m gonna do another self-supported HIM on the IMLP course the day before the race. Rambonie and I did this last year and it was fricking awesome. We also got the better weather of the 2 days (fingers crossed for good weather this year). So on Saturday I’m going to do one loop of the swim, bike and run. David Mak and Jackie V are both going to join me for all or part of the “event”, and we may even be joined by some other tweeps. And of course, keeping with tradition, the event has a name. I’ve decided to call it the Half-Naked self-supported HIM for 3 reasons:

1. We will be scantily clad because we are triathletes.
2. The word “naked” draws attention (which I like).
3. I have been on a mission for the past year to be 100% myself, honest, genuine and authentic almost to the point of discomfort. This has actually been incredibly enriching and has opened up so many new opportunities with work, friends, family, etc. I sometimes call this “being naked” with people. So the Half-Naked is dedicated to this mission. It shall be a celebration.

One more thing… I was in Lake Placid for a Mega Deth Training Weekend only a few weeks ago. The purpose of the trip was to be a big push in training, on the race course, for my IMLP tri-peeps. Well, being that I lub them and hanging out with them always happens simultaneously with swimming, biking and running, it turns out that I’ve trained a lot more than needed to complete a HIM. The LP training weekend made me realize that the Half-Naked wouldn’t be enough of a challenge. I know I can do it. I wanna do something that I’m not sure I can do. Soooo… I decided to do ANOTHER Half-Naked, completely alone, on the Friday before. Yes, an IM distance split into 2 days. Of course this will be called Totally Naked. And I really don’t know if I CAN do it. Although, I do know I’m a badass, so I’m betting that I can.

If anyone else wants to spend time Half-Naked with me, let me know and I’d love to have you join in. Unfortunately for you all, I only get Totally Naked by myself :)

I'm a BIG STAR on the latest Zen and the Art of Triathlon podcast

Check out the show from my visit to Texas (via http://texafornia.squarespace.com/):

Click here to listen

"Christine Lynch (Twitter.com/holisticguru) came down to Texas from her hometown of Harlem to show us how to shop and cook better. In return, we took her on a killer bike ride and then to Lance's bike shop in Austin.

Christine proved herself to be a grocery store ninja and also a master of hot bike rides. She had a great time and we truly enjoyed her visit.

Listen in to get lots of shopping and cooking tips from a true master.

Shownotes!

• Christine, Kai, and Brett making hemp milkshakes with ingredients from Nutiva. Thanks, Nutiva!
• Christine and Brett out on the Ride of Truth. 70 miles in the hot Texas sun... Will she crack?
• We take Christine to the weirdest 4th of July party ever.
• Off to Barton Springs for some swimming and trail running.
• Partying at Mellow Johnny's bike shop.
• Driving from Austin to Houston in the ZenTri Mobile Studio."

Wicked Training Weekends

I've had two mega awesome training weekends recently. I luv swimming, biking and running but it only gets better when I travel for it.. and when I'm surrounded by my best buds... and when our sponsors send us tons of delicious nutrition to stuff in our faces. My Nutiva friend, Mark, is the bestest for rushing the stuff through the mail to get there in time for the madness.

First we had the Mega Deth Training Weekend in Lake Placid. The boys are all training for IMLP and that means that I sometimes train for IMLP. That also makes me a badass because I'm not even doing an Ironman this year. I should also mention that I never really felt like I needed to recover from the 19 hrs of training in 4 days because my nutrition was perfectly spot on. I felt incredible. The weekend went something like this:

• *Friday - Load up the car with the essentials (Phil, Javier, bikes, Nutiva goodies, Nuun goodies, Action Wipes, and ONE Coconut Water). Then swim 4k at Pond Blanco and run 10 miles before driving to Lake Placid to meet up with Rambonie and Jen.
• *Saturday - ride an LP loop (56 miles) then stop for snacks (Nutiva energy bars and ONE coconut water) then start another loop and cut it short due to a mysterious cycling accident by Javier (Crash Gomez). After a short break, a run loop (13 miles).
• *Sunday - Hemp shakes for brekky, made with coconut water to fuel up for another bike loop (56 miles) followed by a 3 mile run then a 2k swim in Mirror lake. We had to be on the road by 6pm to head home and people were psyched that we shared our sponsor goodies which also left us with less stuff to pack into the car.
• *Monday - A spontaneous 14 mile run with Phil because we're just nuts, then recovery hemp shakes made with ONE acai juice (such a yummy mix). Phil is officially hooked, even though hemp is NOT addictive. It's a choice... a smart one.

Next up was my trip to Texas to meet Texafornia in real life and survive the Ride of Truth:

• *Thursday - Missed my connecting flight in Dallas because of a delay in NYC, but didn't mind because I got to meet Triboomer and his wife. I have so many people to thank for helping/ offering to help with that situation as soon as they saw my updates on Twitter. Triboomer picked me up in Dallas and drove me to Waco, TX (3 hrs round trip) to meet Texafornia in Waco and drive back to College Station (3 hrs for him as well). This was all pretty crazy, especially since the airline offered to put me up in a hotel, but Tex said no to that because we had a trail run scheduled for the morning. Crazy, I know.
• *Friday - Trail run with Texafornia. We were joined by his 4-year-old triathlete son Kai. I hope to be as tough as Kai someday. He started out on his mtn bike and finished up by running with us. Then we made hemp shakes and had a taste test with Kai. We recorded audio of this which is supposedly hilarious, listen for it on the Zen and the Art of Triathlon podcast via iTunes. After that we went on a healthy food shopping tour, joined by @Envirogisgirl and a cooking lesson (Sweet Potato Quesadillas) for our pre-ride dinner. We also made potato wedges with Nutiva coconut oil to fuel our ride.
  
• *Saturday - ROT ride. I took the healthy hippie approach to fueling for this event by drinking my TOP SECRET maple syrup energy drink, and eating potato wedges and dates. I won't say much because you'll just listen to the podcast. I will say that it was 121 degree (heat index) when we finished the 70 mile windy ride. I survived and didn't complain once. I did feel like I got hit by a train for days afterwards. That night we went to a 4th of July party where we saw nothing that was weird. Not one bit.
• *Sunday - Hemp shakes for everyone before our trip to Austin and Barton Springs for a swim lesson. If you ever have a chance to get a swim lesson with Texafornia, jump on it. It was awesome and I now have a few things to work on that will make me a more efficient swimmer. At 2pm, in the heat of Texas, we decided that it wouldn't be insane to do a trail run for 45 mins. After that we suffered heat stroke, jumped in the water again, then went to Mellow Johnny's for a Tour party. We also did another healthy shopping tour with ZenTriNurse (Texafornia's fabulous wife).

The above photo was taken right before the Ride of Truth. I do not have an explanation for Texafornia's behavior here.