Ultra Drop Bags: Plan Every Bag by Station¶
The night before, there is a pile.
Shoes, socks, gels, a jacket, two headlamps, batteries, tape, a warm hat you may not need. Around it sit the bags, one for every station that takes one. Packing them is a puzzle you solve with race nerves, on the floor.
Get one piece wrong and you find out much later. You open the bag at mile 50, the sun is going down, and the headlamp is in the bag you picked up at mile 30.
That worry is what the NavRun drop bag planner is for.
What a Drop Bag Is, and Why Trail Races Run on Them¶
A drop bag is a bag you pack before the race and hand in at the start. The race carries it out to an aid station, a stop on the course with food, water and volunteers, and it waits there until you arrive. Not every station takes one. The race manual says which do, and how big a bag can be.
On a road marathon you carry a few gels and the course hands you the rest every couple of miles. A trail ultra is different. Stations can be hours apart. The weather at the start is not the weather on the ridge at midnight. A 50K might have one drop bag stop, and a 100-mile race might have five or six. Your crew, the friends or family who drive between stations to help you, can only reach some of them, and some races allow no crew at all.
So the bags are your plan written in gear. Each one has to hold what you need for the stretch after it, and for the conditions you will meet there, packed days earlier by a version of you who was rested and warm.
Walk the Race, Station by Station¶
Open Drop bags from your race and you get every aid station on the course, in the order you meet them. Each row shows the mile, the station, whether it takes a drop bag, and the bag you have packed there.
The drop bag answer has three states: drop bag, no drop bag here, or nobody has said. That third one matters. A blank in a race manual is not a no, and the planner will not treat it as one. A station nobody has checked still lets you "Pack one anyway", with a line saying it has not been checked.
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From there:
- Pack a bag at any station, or with no station yet if you have not decided where it goes.
- Rename it, or move it to another station.
- Add or remove items. "Headlamp", "spare socks", "jacket". Your words, one line each.
- Tick things off as they go into the bag. The tick saves the moment you tap it.
If you added your race from the NavRun catalog at /ultras/, the stations can come with the course, along with what the race has said about drop bags at each one. Where the race has not said, the page says nobody has said.
The Packing List: Every Bag in One Place¶
The planner is the map. The Packing list is what you use on the floor the night before.
It groups every bag's items under that bag's name, station and mile, so you can work bag by bag: fill the mile 30 bag, tick each item as it goes in, close it, move on. A bag with nothing in it yet stays on the list with a plain note, so it does not vanish from view.
There is no count anywhere. No "8 of 14", no progress bar. A tick is yours, not a score, and the screen says so: "Ticks are yours and are not shared with anyone."
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On the iPhone, Share sends the plan itself: the bags, their stations, the miles and the items. It never sends a tick or what you have packed. That makes it the thing to text your crew, so the person meeting you knows which bag is at which station and what is in it.
The People Meeting You See the Bags¶
A bag you pack for a station shows on your crew page and in the crew room, next to that station. The crew page link needs no account, so whoever is driving between stops can open it on their phone. When a stop takes a bag, they know it is there and what you put in it. When nobody has confirmed whether that stop takes bags, they still see your bag, with a note that nobody has confirmed it.
If you are in the Crew (the paid part of NavRun), the race strategy page's drop bag column shows the same bags, read only, with a link back to the planner, and a printable Drop Bag Sheet sits next to the written strategy. The planner and the packing list do not need any of that. They are free.
For more on what a crew does at each stop, see how to crew and pace an ultra runner.
What It Does Not Do¶
It does not tell you what to pack. It holds the list you make and puts it in the right order.
It does not know the race's bag size limit, labelling rules or hand-in deadline. Those live in the race manual, and they change from race to race.
At a backyard or 24-hour race your gear sits in one spot by the start, so there is no station list to walk (what that race looks like).
How to Plan Drop Bags by Hand¶
None of this needs an app. The craft is the same on paper.
Start from the course, not the gear. List every station that takes a bag, with its mile and when you expect to reach it. The time matters more than the mile: a bag you reach after dark needs the headlamp, a warm layer and batteries whether it sits at mile 30 or mile 70. For night miles, see Surviving the Night in a 100-Miler.
Pack for the stretch after the bag. Each bag holds fuel for the next leg at least, plus something you can stomach when gels stop working. The ultra fueling calculator gives you a number per hour to pack against.
Put the same few things in every bag. Socks, lube, a spare light or batteries, a little tape. Relentless Forward Commotion's beginner guide suggests an inner zip bag with the next section's food and a change of socks, and plan B food.
Pack a small bag inside the big one. A clear zip bag on top with only that stop's essentials gets you in and out faster. Trail and Summit calls that the difference between a few minutes and rummaging through a dry bag in the dark.
Label it big. Name, bib number and station, in letters a volunteer can read at a glance. Some races, like Bighorn, hand out their own tags and have their own rules. Follow theirs.
Pack days early, not the night before. Then the night before is only checking.
For the stop itself, what to do from the moment you walk in, read Ultra Aid Station Strategy.
Common Questions¶
What is a drop bag in an ultramarathon?¶
A bag of your own gear, food and clothes that you hand in before the start. The race takes it to an aid station on the course, and it waits there until you arrive.
What should I put in an ultra drop bag?¶
Fuel for the stretch after that station, a change of socks, lube, and whatever the time of day calls for: a headlamp and warm layer for after dark, sunscreen and ice for the heat. Pack food you can eat when gels stop working.
How many drop bags do I need?¶
One for each station that takes one and where you expect to need something. The race manual lists which stations take bags. A 50K may have one; a 100-mile race may have five or six.
Is the drop bag planner free?¶
Yes. The planner, the packing list and Share are free on the web and the iPhone app, whether or not you are in the Crew, NavRun's paid plan.
Can my crew see my drop bags?¶
Yes. Each bag shows on your crew page and in the crew room at its station. The crew page link needs no account.
What if my race has no aid stations on NavRun yet?¶
You can still pack bags and choose where they go later. Add the stations yourself, or pick the race from the catalog if we have its course on file.
The Night Before¶
The pile will still be there. The bags will still be on the floor. What changes is that the plan was made days ago, station by station, and the night before is only ticking.
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