What To Put In Your Ironman Transition Bags

Well folks this is Ironman laid out on the floor in front of me. These are all the bags and I want to show you exactly what I've got set up here for Ironman Hawaii because when you register you get five bags and you put specific things in each one. So let's go ahead and start with the pre swim bag, this gray bag that they give you. What I'll drop into this bag are all the things that I'll need for the swim. So of course the timing chip for sure along with as you would expect the swim cap and the goggles and the skin shoot, the skin suit. I'll be able to get this bag back right after the race as well. So there's a few other things that I'll have in here. First of all for pre race I have a face stick, sunscreen and a regular sunscreen. For the body.

I'm using an energy 28. Usually I'll either use this or I'll use ener prime. I'll take this about 30 to 60 minutes beforehand. I've got a gel to take five minutes before the swim starts.

And then I've got some of the supplements that I'll be using for this race. Specifically the five things that you see here I'm going to take amino acids, I'm going to take some extreme endurance, some hammer race caps, some colostrum which I'm taking to help my stomach do better in the heat and then some cortagen from Millennium Sports to help a little bit with lung function. I've got some magnesium spray and I'll spray this on my arms and my legs before I head out into the water. I also spray this on my body after the race to help with recovery and then I've got some tri slide body lube to put underneath the armpits on this swim skin because it can tend to chafe especially in the salt water if you don't have some lube on. And I'll also spray this like in my crotch area and stuff to reduce friction from cycling. A couple other things for post race I've got some recovery balm. I'm using dragon ice for this one. I just like this is basically just a sample. I think I picked this up at a triathlon. And then some anti inflammatory capsules as phenocaine that I'll take after the race to reduce some of the pain and discomfort in my legs. It's just like a turmeric based anti inflammatory. So all of this stuff goes into my pre swim bag and that's what I'll kind of throw over my shoulder when I head down to the swim start at Ironman on race morning. And I'll just turn this into a special place where I can grab it after the race once I've of course got my swim skin on and my goggles cap on. The next bag that I'll come to when I come out of the swim is my bike gear bag. So I'll have my helmet in my bike gear bag. Of course, my number on the front. I've got my sunglasses. This year I've actually installed a tiny little rear view mirror on my sunglasses. And this will kind of help me see what's going on around me. There tend to be a lot of like packs and stuff that form during this race. And I want to not only know if people are drafting off me, but kind of kind of just be really aware of everything that's going around.

Me as I'm racing. I've got these arm coolers and these are kind of rolled up into donut shapes. And I'll put these on in transition before I get onto the bike. These will help to keep my arms cool. I've got my race number, of course, my shoes. And I will be using socks in this race because your toes can get kind of hot and wearing socks helps your toes not to get so hot in a race like this.

Halfway through the bike I'll get my special foods bag for the bike. In my special foods bag I have an extra tube in CO2 cartridge in case I flat anywhere. Halfway through the race I'll be able to grab this in case I flat on the last half of the race as a spare change. And of course I have this little bag full of all the food for the second half of my bike ride. You'll see. I even threw a power bar in there because I like to have something for some reason I like a power bar halfway through. Don't ask me why. No scientific reason for it. I put this in a little bag though, so I can grab this little bag out of the big bag. Because a lot of times if you try to use this big bag on the move, it gets stuck in your spokes and stuff. So this little bag will just pull out of the big bag and be off on my way and stuff all this stuff like into my shorts and stuff as I'm going down the road. Okay. Once I get off the bike, I will run into my run gear bag. Now I've got some extra electrolytes again just in case that I'll carry with me on the run in case I cramped. I've got my Bex Palm cooling device that I'll just hold that on my hand for the first 6090 minutes of the run.

I've got my extra race number in case it rips on the bike or comes off or it's really windy out there anyways, just in case I lose that race number an extra one so I don't get DQ'd for not having a race number. I've got my zoot cooling hat that kind of drops in body temperature and then of course I've got my run shoes that'll go into my run bag as well.

I have pretty much nothing in my special needs bag for the run. I put caffeine in there before. Frankly there's enough caffeine in my gel so it doesn't matter. I've got band aids. That's about it. In case I've got blisters, I've got band aids for my special needs bag on the run.

I could put a nice picture of my family or something in there to motivate me, but frankly you have very little chance in an ironman of ever seeing your special needs bag for the bike in the run again. After the race it's hard to get back, so I really don't put much into that special needs run bag.

Technically I might benefit if I were to throw some caffeine pills or something in there, but I'm not really even that excited about doing that. So that one's probably going to stay empty. So that folks is it. Hopefully that's helpful for you. And if you have questions, leave them in the comments underneath this post over at bengreenfieldfitness. Com. Thanks for watching.