What’s in my swim bag

That’s right. I’m writing an entire blog post about what’s in my gym bag. Half of me is like, Kell, no one cares what’s in your gym bag.

The other half of me would love to know what’s in your gym bag, because I love bags and snacks and packing things and little bottles filled with delicious smelling shampoos.

I’ve written some packing lists for running on vacation and packing for air travel to a half marathon and they were popular posts.

So…

Here’s what’s in my swim bag now that I’ve been half a dozen times and gotten things figured out.

• Bag with shower supplies; shampoo, conditioner, bar soap, wash cloth and salt deodorant stone. Everything I want while I’m still in the shower stall goes in here. The wash cloth helps get the chlorine smell off. (Note, it doesn’t get the chlorine smell off, it just helps.) Keeping this separate from the cosmetics I want after showering made things much more efficient.
• Bag with post-shower supplies; moisturizer, tinted spf, concealer, mascara, comb, hair gel, blush. I cleaned out my cosmetics drawer and had plenty of “second choice” cosmetics to populate this bag without a trip to the store.
• Goggles
• Swim cap
• Credit card, coins, and cash. You can call your credit card company and request an additional card; they’ll usually send one for free. I keep a duplicate in my gym bag so I can still run errands on the way home without subjecting my gorgeous Matt & Nat wristlet to the inside of my gym bag.
• Snacks. I never thought I’d be the power bar type, and I’m not, but it takes a while to shower and get dressed and drive home… too long for me to wait to replenish calories after a swim. I like to keep raisins, nuts, and oatmeal Munk packs in my bag so I don’t get hangry. I’ll often eat a large handful of raisins right before I hit the pool to fuel my workout if it’s been a while since breakfast. Yup… I’m the weirdo in the locker room standing around in my bathing suit eating raisins.
• Lock. I always bring my phone, so I use a combination lock. It’s worth an extra 30 seconds to make sure no one walks off with your iphone and car keys.
• Dry clothes. I go to the pool wearing my swim suit and shower flip-flops under “gym to-fro” clothes that I thought I was going to lounge in eternally but am shocked to discover I’m actually using to go to and from the gym. I put my dry clothes underneath the bag with shower supplies and above the post-shower supply bag so I don’t have to dig around with wet hands to find my shampoo. I don’t bring socks or shoes, I just wear my shower shoes to the pool and home again. If I’m going somewhere, I’ll throw footwear into the car but not bring it into the gym since it takes up a lot of space in the bag and I find it easier to slip back into my flip flops than to try to put on socks in the shower stall without getting them wet.
• Towels: As soon as I get to the gym, I grab two towels. One to bring to the pool with me so I don’t drip all over the floor when I go back to the locker section to retrieve my gym bag before showering, and one to tuck into the gym bag for after I’ve showered. I hate to use two, but the one I use directly out of the pool is covered with chlorine so using it post-shower would kind of defeat the purpose.
• Wet bag: I use a reusable wet bag to stash my swim suit in. It’s never that wet because I use the cool spin cycle machine in the locker room, but it contains the chlorine. You can search “wet bag” on Amazon and get tons of options. They’re machine washable, and the ones intended for cloth diapering are extremely reliable. That way you don’t have to use a plastic bag every time you go for a swim 🙂

My bag itself is an L.L. Bean adventure duffel. It doesn’t have a lot of fancy compartments, but it gets the job done and I’ve had it for years.

Here are the munk packs: I try to go for less individually packaged snacks, but sometimes the oatmeal and fruit combo really hits the spot.

Shampoo & Conditioner – I’m currently using some by Aubrey made specifically for getting chlorine and sweat out of hair. It’s sold at Whole Foods, and is a pretty neutral (if any) fragrance. I’m not sure it completely removes the chlorine smell, but my hair definitely smells less than my skin after showering. Whether that’s the swim cap or the shampoo I don’t know.

New addition – Scented soap! My skin smells like chlorine no matter how much I scrub, so I decided to grab a scented soap. Yes, I’d rather remove it than cover it up, but doesn’t a scented soap attempt both? Just hedging my bet here.

Wish list: I need to find an amazing leave in conditioner to protect my hair from the pool. I’ve been growing it out, which means the ends are more vulnerable to dryness than they might be if I cut it more frequently.

I mean, I don’t mind looking like a triathlete… I’d just rather it was noticable in the upper arms and not the split ends.

Also, I do mind smelling like a triathlete. I’m going to figure this chlorine removal thing out, probably before I master the crawl.