The gear bag

There is something vaguely pornographic about writing this list when I am still feeling quite ill (lungs are on the mend, but it's taking what seems like forever to get better - I have written off any notion of a weekend mega-workout, all I can hope for is to get to the start line more or less healthy!). Send positive thoughts my way!

I'm shipping my bike and gear bag to Coeur d'Alene via TriBike Transport. I've used this service twice for the Florida 70.3 race and been very pleased with it; the great advantage is that the bikes are shipped on trucks, so that they don't have to be disassembled and put back together (and you can also pack things like CO2 that you're not allowed to take even in a checked bag on a plane). Also you don't then have to have a carry-on bag packed densely full with a huge amount of race stuff that you can't risk having go astray in checked baggage...

(NB - you will all be shaking your heads - the reason this is important is that I'm not coming back to New York afterwards, I'm going with Brent to Ottawa for a week and then back to Cayman for the rest of July and August, so I have to haul all of my stuff for the whole summer, including work stuff that also tends to be - marked-up manuscripts! - not what one could sensibly check!)

I made a master race-day list the other day, and then used that to figure out what I'm sending in the gear bag. Not the helmet and bike shoes (helmet might get banged up and lose efficacy - thanks, Carly!; bike shoes will be needed if I manage to have a few short spins to get the legs going again between now and race day); not the swim stuff, ditto and it's lightweight/compact. But most of the other stuff I have a fallback version of here if I need it, and I do think it makes sense to send as much as possible this way.

So:

running shoes
wetsuit, booties (I did not get the neoprene cap, I will wear two regular caps for warmth, I do not like the idea of a possibly strangulating chinstrap!)
sports bra, tri shorts, jersey, run shirt, socks, rain jacket (very lightweight, it fits in bike jersey pocket and in the pouch I'll wear on the run)
hand-held bottle (will use this on the run to drink between aid stations, will ditch it if it gets bothersome)
bento box
albuterol inhalers
canister of EFS drink powder
Hoo-ha Ride Glide (chamois cream - have not yet tried it, but it sounds useful - BodyGlide stays in regular toiletries bag, I can always pick up another onsite if I need it)
Honey Stinger waffles (delicious bike nutrition!)
2 tubes, 2 CO2 (plus one more of each in saddle bag on the bike - yes, I'm paranoid, those flats on the Montauk Century rattled me, I have room in my hydration pack to store these and there's no reason not to have 'em - then also if I see another racer who needs one, I could hand one over without thinking it was foolhardy!)
a selection of gloves: short-finger bike gloves which are what I will probably use, full-finger ones which are more comfortable and which I would use instead if the day was 50s-60s rather than 70s-80s, running gloves to store in my waist pack in case it is cool in the later part of the evening - I'll be walking much of that marathon, and keeping hands warm is most important (I will also have the rain jacket for an extra layer)
Nathan hydration pack with Camelbak 70oz reservoir (for bike)
Camelbak waist pack (for run, but packed with supplies not with hydration: 6 Crank cherry gels [I cannot imagine I will be able to get down quite so many of them, but they are preferable to every other kind I've tried, and it's a long time out there!], salt tabs in a plastic tube, Benadryl ditto [I know I now am sounding like one of those people who carries a whole pharmacy with them, but I am at the far end of the spectrum on sensitivity to insect stings etc. and I can easily imagine a situation where Benadryl would make a huge difference to my day!], immodium, 2 handiwipes, dramamine [that is if the water is rough on the swim]

Drop-off was originally scheduled for today, but has been moved to tomorrow, at SBR. This has given me a very uneasy butterflies feeling in stomach, as though I have somehow messed up and missed all-important deadline!