special needs bags

Yes, you'll get all your bags at registration.  Bring the special needs ones down on race morning and they will direct you where to put them.  Volunteers will be sorting them in numerical order.  You'll also get a bag for your "morning gear" so if you wear sweat pants and sweat shirt down to body marking, you put all that stuff in the morning gear bag after putting on your wetsuit.  You can pick it up at the end of the day.

They usually recommend not putting things in your special needs bags that you want to be returned, but at Lake Placid I was able to pick up my unused stuff in special needs on the following morning. 

Careful on what you put in the bags.  You might not get them back.  So nothing of real value or sentiment.

I gave up an innertube and two CO2 cartrigeges (spelling).

Bike special needs: 

 1 tube, 1C02, two-bite brownies, extra endurolytes, pringles

- never picked it up

Run special needs:

 two bite brownies, pringles, extra endurolytes, blister stuff

- took it and ate the pringles  MONEY!!

At IMCanada you don't get the special needs bags back.  You drop them off at the body marking station in numbered boxes.

b. 

They yell your number out on the other side of the road and a volunteer USUALLY picks it up and holds it out for you, don't count on that if you're with a gaggle of people though.

The special needs bags are only available at a certain point in the race, at IMC it is at 120kms on the bike, 21km for the run.  You can't get them earlier than that.  If you run out of tubes/CO2 prior to the special needs, they will have tech support vehicles on course that will help you.

b. 

Lots of good stuff in PB, J and bread. I carried two Uncrustables with me on the bike.

Oh...and Slim Jims. I ate about 4 of them on the bike. Good for when you get tired of sweet stuff for hours on end.

No, but you should be carrying that stuff with you. The point of having extras in your SN bag is if, say, you get a flat in the first 50 miles you'll have extra stuff waiting for you at SN.

Advice for special needs bags:

Bike-Refill on nutrition (unless you are using course support),  Bodyglide,Spare tube or tubular and CO2 (in case you flatted on the first loop and need them), any solid food you have trained with and might want on the bike (for me it was a PB and Banana sandwich).

Run-Change of socks (makes your feet feel better), Bodyglide, some sort of special treat to get you to the finish line.

Don't stress over these or make too much of them, some people (like Jim) never even use them. 

Run SN bag, Advil, or your favorite anti inflammatory / pain reliever.  This was a good send at ChesapeakMan.

I also had some goodies (Peanut M&M's) in both SN bags for me.  These were great on the 2nd 1/2 of the bike, however, on the run, I almost threw up at the site of them.

Another thing that I did was put a jacket/long sleeve shirt in for the Run SN bag.  If you are out after dark it can get quite cold.  However, if you are not guaranteed to get your stuff back make sure it is one that you may not mind losing.

Adios
Dave

For the run portion of IM FL I had a long sleeved dry fit shirt that can in handy to throw on.  Also, I had 2 samples of biofreeze in there.  I grabbed then and had my boyfriend put it on my knees when I ran by him- it really helped even if it was just mental or a temporary fix.  The biofreeze helped to numb the pain for awhile.  I also had Tyleonl 8 hour in my run SN bag- that came in handy at the 1/2 way pointas well

For the bike, I had the usual- some uncrutables, extra gels, bottle of perpeteum, nutrition, extra tubular tire and CO2's.

Try to keep your bags simple.  I had way too much stuf fin my bike SN bag and it was more of a hassle to find what I needed.