Trail running – carrying water

[Benjamin Smith]

What have people done to carry water when running? My camelback is overkill for the distances I cover, but carrying a bottle in my hand is annoying, and I don’t like the sloshy feeling of a half-empty bottle in fanny/lumbar pack.

Ben

[Gear Meister]

There are some small Camelbaks. They take up to a 2L bladder, but you could just use a 1L if that is a better size for your length of trail run.

The pack only has about 200 cubic inches of additional volume and an external bungee arrangement for securing a windshirt or rainjacket.

They are so small that they don’t even have webbing for a waist belt – no waist belt at all. It is a nice model, I forget the name right now, but the shoulder straps and sternum strap secure it just fine. It’s also short enough that you could also use a fanny pack while wearing the small Camelback if you take a slightly run or day-hike.

[Benjamin Smith]

Meister – thanks for the input. Does anyone make a fanny pack that uses a bladder rather than a bottle pocket?

Ben

[Ken]

There are several hydration fanny packs available.

For shorter runs, I use an MSR XOOM (no longer sold, unfortunately). I also have a Golite Hare, which is a little larger than the XOOM, but doesn’t ride quite as well (on me).

Camelback offers 3 fanny packs with bladders in varying sizes: Alterra, Catalyst, and FlashFlo.

There are probably others; these are just the ones I’m familiar with. You can also make your own. Just find a fanny pack you like and add a Platypus Hoser or MSR hydration kit.

[Benjamin Smith]

sounds good – http://www.gearx.com has a bunch of Ultimate Direction gear on sale, and it looks like they primarily make hydration and fanny packs. Thanks for the tips – I didn’t know if anyone had any nifty ideas that I hadn’t thought of.

Ben

[EndoftheTrail]

Howdy Ben:

You won’t have any problems with water sloshing around if you use bladders. As you suck water out, the bladder collapses due to the “vacuum effect” — preventing any water movement.

I would say any decent lumbar pack will do — just match the size of the bladder to your needs.

The Other Ben.

[Dale Wambaugh]

I have one of these Nalgene packs with a 1.8 liter Platypus squeeezed in. I’ll put it up for sale if you are interested. (I did on 9/21, see my “odds and ends” post in the swap forum.)

[Al Shaver]

Ben,
Unlike you I’m a water pig. On a long hot run I’ll load 3-1/2 quarts Gatorade in my Camelbak and throw a 1-1/4 quart Nalgene cantene bladder on top of it in my ancient Mountain Smith lumbar pack. It has excellent stabilization straps and carries this 9-1/2 lb load well. Near the end of my run I’m only carrying a quart and it still carries well. So for your size load I would think it would be easy to find a suitable fanny pack.

Just make sure you buy the bladder first and take it filled with you on your fanny pack shopping trips. Load up the pack and do some serious running in the store (or outside if they’ll let you) before you purchase.

[Benjamin Smith]

Al,

Well, keep in mind that your definition of a long run may be different from mine ;). In south Texas right now the temps are around 100% and the humidity isn’t far behind, and I’m too much of a weenie to run for more than about an hour in that.

Thanks for the tips – this should all help a lot.

Ben

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