Ironman Packing List

Seeing other people's lists was very helpful in putting mine together, so I thought I'd share what I had with me on race day (as well as some thoughts on what was helpful and what wasn't!) The task of packing for this thing was ridiculously overwhelming, but I think I did pretty well.

Swim to Bike bag:

• bike shoes
• socks
• tri shorts and top (DeSoto 400 mile shorts and skirt sports top. I chose to swim in a swimsuit and change rather than deal with the chafing caused by wet clothes. Plus, my tri shorts have better padding than my tri suit.)
• bike gloves
• small towel to dry off
• helmet
• sunglasses
• bondi band
• chamois butter (a must for that distance!)
• 2 powerbar gels (one for right away, one went into the cleavage pocket for later. my stomach no longer likes gu. Go figure.)
• an individually packaged wipe (didn't use. I thought I would like to clean up after rubbing chamois butter, err, where chamois butter goes. As it turns out, I didn't much care on race day if my hand smelled like butt after all.)
• garmin
• arm warmers (YES, in Mexico, shut up. The day before the race was actually pretty freaking chilly until about noon, and I am super sensitive to cold on the bike. I didn't use them but I was prepared for anything!)
• 2 spare small packets of chamois butter (I put them in my shorts pocket and lost them. The pocket on  my tri shorts is unreliable, I guess!)
• list of instructions for what to do with everything and in what order (I ignored it.)

In the zipper pocket of my top:

• little spray thing of neosporin (didn't use, even though my ankle and foot were bleeding after the swim. I didn't care enough about infection to stop moving.)
• spare contacts (also didn't use, and I have never lost a contact while biking, running, or even swimming, but that would've sucked so much that I'm glad I had backups, just in case!)
• my good luck charm Speedy (he never misses a race!)

On my bike:

• bandana tied to the handlebars (I stole this from someone else's list. It was a GENIUS idea. It was reachable from aero position and soaked up mass amounts of snot. My gloves would not have sufficed as snot-catchers for a race that long.) 
• old throwaway water bottle with day-old water (they didn't have water out at the resort that morning) to get me through to the first aid station

In my saddle bag:

• spare tube
• patch kit
• 2 co2 cartridges and valve for them
• multi tool
• individually packaged wipe (all this is the same stuff that is usually in my saddle bag)

Bike Special Needs:

• another spare tube (in case I had already used the first one)
• 2 more c02 cartridges 
• more chamois butter (was glad to have it after the other ones fell out of my pocket!)
• another wipe (again, didn't care about cleanliness at that point)
• 3 aleve in a plastic bag (thank God!!)
• peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich (my usual go-to on long rides but tasted like cardboard that day)
• v8 (I loooove v8, worked well for nutrition, too)
• snickers bar (that got stolen!!! WTF!!!!)

The stuff in this bag got thrown out after the race, but I'm glad I spent the money on an extra tube and cartridges. I thought of it as a flat insurance fee. (I had to leave the other co2's behind, too, since they're not permitted on a plane. I asked tri bike transport to donate them to needy Mexican triathletes.)

Bike to Run:

• running shoes
• fresh socks (in retrospect, I would've been fine keeping my other socks on and it was such a pain putting socks on sweaty feet!)
• race belt with number on it and one gel, one wipe in the pocket (I don't know WHY I was so obsessed with cleanliness when I was packing for this thing!)
• body glide
• contact solution, in case of dry eyeballs (didn't need)
• another pb&j (this was an afterthought but I was definitely glad to have it. I'm sure it helped fuel the 26.2, and I may not have been able to stomach it halfway through the run.)
• list of instructions (again, didn't use)

Run Special Needs:

• anti-chafing gel (didn't really need, as they had vaseline on the course, but I used it anyway on the parts that I hadn't thought to body glide before the run)
• 3 aleve in a plastic bag 
• bag of fritos (yes, awesome, I can ALWAYS eat crunchy salty things!)
• can of v8 (again, worked out well) 
• starburst gummies (didn't really need them and they tasted too sweet, so I trashed them anyway; they were an afterthought at the resort gift shop when I bought my other food)

There wasn't anything else I wanted or needed during the race, besides my missing snickers bar!!! :) Most of the stuff that I didn't use, I was glad I had anyway (because a flat tire or lost contact would have been an epic disaster if I wasn't prepared!)  besides the thousand wipes and the neosporin. They didn't take up much room, though.

I was also really glad to have a stopwatch counting the race time. I guess a normal watch would've sufficed but that was an easier visual. Of course, I had my road id too. It made for some funky tan lines but that's a badge of honor for a triathlete, right?

Oh....one last item I packed....a spare pair of goggles just in case mine got knocked off while swimming. I pinned them to my suit and they tucked away quite nicely and unnoticeably between my breasteses. I'm not sure what guys would do with spare goggles...or where they'd put their spare gels for that matter! Those things can come in quite handy.

Again, I'm proud of myself for going in so well-prepared. Can ya tell I was a girl scout??