Hip water-packs

Last year I got a 4-bottle fuel belt for a couple of bucks at Goodwill - new & unused with the tags still on it (probably never would have been able to convince the wife to let me buy it otherwise).  It's a large, and i don't wear a large, but a few safety pins took care of that.  The safety pins are now rusting out from all the salt my sweating has exposed them to, so I'm going to have a friend sew it this year, but I still love it.   My only wish (aside from it being the correct size to begin with) is to upgrade the 8-oz bottles to 10-oz, but it's working great for me otherwise as i train for my second half-iron and my first marathon.

We recently bought a spinner to keep at home, and I'm doing half to 2/3 of my bike training indoors this season - with a new kiddo, it's my compromise with my beautiful wife, and is actually working really well for me (averaged 20+MPH at my last sprint race with hardly any outdoor riding at all).  Spinervals Competition Series has been a HUGE boon for me - pop in a good Spinervals workout, and just follow along.  If you don't have access to them, use a  weekly protocol of 2 indoor workouts of 45-60 minutes and one outdoor long ride.  One of the indoor rides is tabata-style sets, and one is 2:1 work:recover ratio sets around lactate threshold - the same kind of protocol I plan my spinning classes around (I'm a part-time instructor in the off-season).  The outdoor is an endurance ride, often with a brick run.

Lest you scoff at the value of indoor training, Christine Clark - the only US woman to qualify for the marathon in the 2000 Olympics - did the bulk of her training on a treadmill.

If you want some more ideas or details on the indoor training, PM me.