some new tri gifts and getting it together for IMNO 70.3

Santa was nice to me this year. I received the top item on my list, the Speedfil hydration system.

Which on the bike looks like this:

(not my bike, I have the step down from the P3)

Its a 40 oz container that is locked onto the frame with a large straw inside a mesh sleeve that goes right up to the cockpit. The mesh sleeve guides the straw and keeps it from going everywhere. So no more reaching down for the bottle and no more bottle attached to the TT bars. which means more time in the aero position (good!).

The opening to the bottle is a open-hatch design that will allow a bottle to insert liquid, but liquid will not come back out of the opening, which means easy fill ups on course. I need to practice exchanging bottles while riding.

So my hydration system is taken care of for the season. Sweet! Thanks Santa (aka mom and dad)! There was even a sample pack of Infinit in there. That is something I am going to start experimenting with really soon and was on my list of to-do's last season, but never got around to it.

Another gift I received that I was NOT expecting was a Gu flask:

It can be filled with 5 Gu's and is a lot more compact (and environmentally friendly) than having 5 individual Gu's in my bento box. Plus, they make a bike mount for it or you can fit it in your bento box or onto your running belt or carry it by hand. It has measurement markers just in case. I am curious to see how squeezing out the Gu works. Does anyone use one of these? Should I add some water to make it more liquidy? Will water even mix with it? I mean, Gu does NOT freeze!!!! The great thing about the individual Gu's is that you can use your teeth to scrape out every last drop of the Gu. I am worried that the hard-ish plastic will leave some of that wonderful Chocolate Outrage in there. Another thing to experiment with!

Total side note: I emailed Gu with a suggestion to make a chocolate peanut butter flavor. They responded with a "thanks for your sugesstion, we are looking into it....", but it sounded a little too automated. I still have my fingers crossed!

And now its time to start bringing up Ironman New Orleans 70.3 more and more. I am a freaking A+ personality when it comes to traveling and racing. Believe it or not, April 18th is gonna be here before I know it. This will be my first destination race, as in I gotta fly there to race, which means transporting the bike. I have heard horror stories of a bike going on a plane with the passenger from the east coast to the west coast and the bike wound up in Puerto Rico (twice!). That person was not able to race.....bummer....

Another horror story was a person shipped their bike via UPS or FedEx and the bike box appeared to have been used as a soccer ball. No thanks!

And this is what brings me to the holy grail of bike shipping, TriBikeTransport. You just show up with your bike at a pickup location (usually a local bike store), they take it and put it on a truck and it shows up at the race site intact and unbroken down....no assembly required! Then you race, and you put it back on a truck and there it shows up at your local bike shop. I am lucky and I have a pickup spot 3 miles from my office at the shop that I bought the bike. I will drop it off 1 week in advance of the race. SCORE!

Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays! Did you score any goodies?