A little backstory here:
Aside from my husband, who is a completely unlearned but highly efficient light packer (he simply doesn't believe in carrying around a lot of stuff), none of my friends ascribe to the travel-light philosophy much. Even when they see me and the Mr. traveling with them without a care (when they lose their bags and have to file a report, when they have to try to lug their big rolling uprights up a flight of stairs because the escalator isn't running at the airport, what have you).
Next January, a group of us are going to Walt Disney World for their marathon weekend. While I'm only doing the half, hubby has signed up for the full... and a friend of ours, who has always had a bit of a competitive streak with my husband, decided she had to one-up him by signing up for the "Goofy" challenge. The "Goofy Race-and-a-Half Challenge" involves running the half-marathon on Saturday, and then the full marathon the very next day, on Sunday. Hence the reason they call it goofy.
I am fully confident that my friend will complete the Goofy challenge. She's already well into her training, and it's in line with what she did this past January, when she did the half-marathon on Saturday, then another half-marathon the next day in the Chip & Dale relay marathon (teams ran a full marathon; each member ran half) and she was in great shape afterwards.
The thing is, she packed a ton of stuff last January. I remember visiting her hotel room during the trip, and being amazed at all the extra stuff she was traveling with. When I was chatted with her about it, she explained that she needed to pack two complete sets of running togs and shoes because she was running two events back to back and couldn't be confident that she could get the first day's clothes washed and dried in time. However with all the extra activewear she brought, she wound up packing a LOT of stuff... way more than she wanted to deal with.
Plus, we had a bit of a scare because one of our other friends (who also entered the half-marathon with us) wound up with the airline losing the check-in bag that contained all her running gear and shoes! This was a detour of at least an hour. She kept waiting for her check-in to show up at the carousel until the very end (which took a good extra half an hour, probably), and then she had to go find the luggage service desk for her airline, and file a report. It turned out her luggage was placed on a different flight when she changed flights at the originating airport, and then the bag never made the connection to Orlando. They finally tracked it in someplace like Tennessee.
She was "lucky"--they shipped the bag to Orlando later that evening. Yay. But now the airline had to get the bag to the hotel. This involved another 3-hour wait. Oy.
...
So. I was chatting with my Goofy friend this weekend. I told her I thought it might be doable to travel to the marathon with just a main carry-on and a large purse. And then she tells me, "But I don't have a magical bag like you."
Yes, she was referring to my Tom Bihn bags!!! You heard it here--they're MAGICAL!!! They're like a clown car (you can fit SO MUCH) and everything just packs up so nicely.
Since my husband and I both have our own Tri-Stars, I offered to ship her mine to her for her Goofy trip (hubby can use his Aeronaut). I'll also include a couple of organizer cubes and an extra Packing Cube Backpack and Packing Cube Shoulder Bag.
We're gonna start with her creating a packing list, and then emailing it to me so I can see what she normally carries. From there, we're gonna try to adjust and whittle things down, and then once we get a light packing list, I can give her suggestions on how to pack the stuff up.
For her, I think there's going to be two main tricks: Using organizer cubes, and doing some laundry during the trip.
I'm so excited!! I realize this sounds really nerdy, but I'm really looking forward to this "experiment"! :-)
Aside from my husband, who is a completely unlearned but highly efficient light packer (he simply doesn't believe in carrying around a lot of stuff), none of my friends ascribe to the travel-light philosophy much. Even when they see me and the Mr. traveling with them without a care (when they lose their bags and have to file a report, when they have to try to lug their big rolling uprights up a flight of stairs because the escalator isn't running at the airport, what have you).
Next January, a group of us are going to Walt Disney World for their marathon weekend. While I'm only doing the half, hubby has signed up for the full... and a friend of ours, who has always had a bit of a competitive streak with my husband, decided she had to one-up him by signing up for the "Goofy" challenge. The "Goofy Race-and-a-Half Challenge" involves running the half-marathon on Saturday, and then the full marathon the very next day, on Sunday. Hence the reason they call it goofy.
I am fully confident that my friend will complete the Goofy challenge. She's already well into her training, and it's in line with what she did this past January, when she did the half-marathon on Saturday, then another half-marathon the next day in the Chip & Dale relay marathon (teams ran a full marathon; each member ran half) and she was in great shape afterwards.
The thing is, she packed a ton of stuff last January. I remember visiting her hotel room during the trip, and being amazed at all the extra stuff she was traveling with. When I was chatted with her about it, she explained that she needed to pack two complete sets of running togs and shoes because she was running two events back to back and couldn't be confident that she could get the first day's clothes washed and dried in time. However with all the extra activewear she brought, she wound up packing a LOT of stuff... way more than she wanted to deal with.
Plus, we had a bit of a scare because one of our other friends (who also entered the half-marathon with us) wound up with the airline losing the check-in bag that contained all her running gear and shoes! This was a detour of at least an hour. She kept waiting for her check-in to show up at the carousel until the very end (which took a good extra half an hour, probably), and then she had to go find the luggage service desk for her airline, and file a report. It turned out her luggage was placed on a different flight when she changed flights at the originating airport, and then the bag never made the connection to Orlando. They finally tracked it in someplace like Tennessee.
She was "lucky"--they shipped the bag to Orlando later that evening. Yay. But now the airline had to get the bag to the hotel. This involved another 3-hour wait. Oy.
...
So. I was chatting with my Goofy friend this weekend. I told her I thought it might be doable to travel to the marathon with just a main carry-on and a large purse. And then she tells me, "But I don't have a magical bag like you."
Yes, she was referring to my Tom Bihn bags!!! You heard it here--they're MAGICAL!!! They're like a clown car (you can fit SO MUCH) and everything just packs up so nicely.
Since my husband and I both have our own Tri-Stars, I offered to ship her mine to her for her Goofy trip (hubby can use his Aeronaut). I'll also include a couple of organizer cubes and an extra Packing Cube Backpack and Packing Cube Shoulder Bag.
We're gonna start with her creating a packing list, and then emailing it to me so I can see what she normally carries. From there, we're gonna try to adjust and whittle things down, and then once we get a light packing list, I can give her suggestions on how to pack the stuff up.
For her, I think there's going to be two main tricks: Using organizer cubes, and doing some laundry during the trip.
I'm so excited!! I realize this sounds really nerdy, but I'm really looking forward to this "experiment"! :-)
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