What is in your gym bag?

Rebecca over at Weight Wars  posted about what was in her gym bag, so I thought I'd share the contents of mine.  Only its not quite so straight forward for me (is it ever?!) because I don't just train in the gym..  So here is an over view of all my fave bits and bobs for training.

So, my Gym Bag:-

Skull and Cross bones back pack with inner pocket and front zipped pocket.  Its not quite big enough for all my kit and shoes, but given I have size 10 feet I'm not sure I'd ever find a bag big enough!  So I make do with this because I love the fabric.

 I store my goggles, swim hat and waterproof mp3 in my bag.

 Nothing special about my showering habits!

I hate being in the gym and having half a dozen little things to carry, plus your locker key, so I invested in a bum bag (super useful for road running too).  It holds everything I need, including Ipod and gym swipe card.  And no, your eyes are not deceiving you, I wear sweat bands!!  I have really short hair and I used to spend all my time moving my hair off my forehead, so I cut to the chase and bought sweat bands.  You won't be the first to laugh at me, I promise, but given I don't look my best when I'm sweating on a treadmill anyway, and I can totally kill it whilst wearing them, I don't mind!

Trainers!  I am a Nike girl through and through.  We went to a shop with a treadmill to look at my gait and had some trainers fitted for my high arches.  I wouldn't be without them - even though we couldn't get pink ones in my size!

So because I'm me and I like all the kit, I bought a pink water bottle when I first started going to the gym and acually, its pretty useless.  Its not big enough and the spout is really stiff and hard, not useful when you're in full swing and just want a quick drink.  I now use the big bottles we use on our bikes.  Great soft spouts.  I also use electrolyte tabs in my water.  Lots of people are undecided on their usefulness, but I have found I get cramp in my feet less since I started using them.

On the left is our amazing Garmin forerunner - on loan from one of Pauls friends.  Don't be fooled by its old skool appearence.  It's a great piece of kit and really useful when you're brick training, because you can hit lap and it will put you into transition, then another hit of lap and you're off on your next phase.  I use this for road running really.  The Garmin on the right is an Edge 500 and gets mounted on the bike - we both use this daily.  As I get more and more active it gets harder and harder to share one device!

I won't bore you with a pic of my two sports bra's, but needless to say its really important to have good support!  For no particular reason I favour one for my bike and one for running.  One is by Nike, the other is by Kelly for Tesco.  I would really love to try a 'Shock Absorber' one day when money is no consideration.

Obviously I have a tri suit - pic on the top banner!  Plus lots of pics of the actual Tri here.  Its a 'More Mile' and I love it - not least because we couldn't find one to fit me when I started this journey!!  On a normal day when I'm just going to swim, then I just wear my normal swim suit - although the life guards at my pool are used to the sight of me in my tri suit!

And now for the sporting love of my life....  Drum roll please...  My bike 'Amy'.

I carry a saddle bag which literally hangs under the saddle and carries 2 spare inner tubes and a hand pump, and I have a 'snack bag' which sits on the cross bar just behing the handle bars.  I have tissues, lip balm and other girly necessities in there.  Then I have 2 pink waterbottle cages, one on the down tube behind the front wheel and the other on the saddle upright.

Helmet is so important Clanettes!!  I just don't know why people choose not to wear them.  If I got knocked off my bike, I would want the peace of mind of knowing I protected myself as much as possible. Then its waterproof phone holder, gloves, glasses and an old pair of trainers that don't offer the running support I need, but are useful for getting muddy on a bike!

Go on, tell me what you have in your gym bag!