So a month or so ago, I ran the Portland Half Marathon, and my hydration belt tried to kill me. No joke. Not only did I lose two bottles from the sheer bounce (not the first time it had happened, but certainly the worst), but the belt itself popped open and fell off, pulling my phone out with it (the phone was not connected to it, but the headphones had looped around the belt and tugged at the phone). I was almost trampled as I tried to retrieve the phone, lost a good deal of water and time from my run, and flashed the crowd as my shorts got caught on the belt.
Lovely.
Not everyone runs with fuel/hydration belts, but I always carry my phone with me (I live in an ICU, people, I need control at all times!), frequently run my races in cold weather where I need to store gloves halfway through the run, and I don’t like having to limit my fluid intake to whenever a water stop is available.
I had solved the phone issue a long time ago with the FlipBelt, by far the best phone holder/fanny-packish implement I’ve tried. It’s soft and elastic and lays flat against your skin, with zero chafe. It also does a really solid job of holding things safely in it (I don’t even use the zippered pocket most of the time, my phone sits very securely… except for when I hook my headphones around my failing hydration belt, that is!).
The second issue, I’ve tried to address in several ways. I’ve run with two different Nathan belts (one with four small bottles, and one with a large bottle). The multiple-bottled belt had far less bounce to it than the stupid single-bottle one, but that’s a really low goal to have. I repeatedly-lost bottles over the course of several races as they bounced their way out of their holsters, it got in the way of my using the FlipBelt, and ultimately, was the belt that tried to kill me. The single-bottle belt I returned very promptly. I’ve also run with a Camelbak backpack, which was less annoying than the belt, but cumbersome, got in the way of my removing extra layers of clothing, and was really just overkill. I’ve run with handheld bottles, but my hands get crampy and I get crabby, and it’s hard to remove extra clothing one-handed. Still, it was what I was planning on doing for today’s Seattle Half Marathon.
Until the expo two days ago, where I realized (cue angels singing!) that the FlipBelt people have now come up with skinny, fitted bottles that tuck snugly into my FlipBelt! I mean, MADE FOR THE DAMN FLIPBELT! Amazing!
They make 6-oz bottles and 11-oz bottles – the 11-oz would be held as a single bottle across the back (or you could shimmy that pocket to the front, up to you), and the 6-oz bottles could be tucked one in front and one in back (what I did), or both back-to-back in the same pocket. They curve slightly, to fit your body. See my pictures to understand …
Like I said, I opted for the two 6-oz bottles. And I LOVED them, for the following reasons:
- They were super lightweight and skinny, very easy to grab and manipulate one-handed during my run with even cold fingers.
- Their sport top spout can be pulled open with my teeth; no twisting tops requiring fingers.
- Until the moment when I needed the second bottle, it sat discreetly in the back of my FlipBelt, with no sloshing and no significant weight or bulk. I didn’t even think of it, until the time came for me to switch it out with the front bottle.
- The bottles were perfectly secure the entire time. I didn’t have to aim for a holster opening – it’s an elastic fabric pocket which hugs the bottles to your body, so they don’t bounce.
- I’m going to say that again: THEY NEVER BOUNCED.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I am now off to write the wonderful, fabulous, gifted people who created the FlipBelt and their sacred bottles a very long note (you think this blog post is wordy? Just you wait!) to thank them for having been born in the first place. Hell, I’m going to write their parents for having conceived them.
Because my race today was FABULOUS, an it was in great part due to them.
So there.
