A running fanny pack

Okay, so it's not really a fanny pack, but I recently watched "Best of I Love the 90s" and they had a whole little section about fanny packs.

Anyways...the running fanny pack. Otherwise known as a hydration belt. I always feel thirsty while running, even just 3 miles, and I knew it'd be good to have around once I get into some longer long runs. Also, last Saturday (my 6.5 mile run) I had planned on giving blood a few hours after finishing the run (poor choice I know, and they ended up denying me anyways). If I was going to survive donating blood, I knew that I'd also need to make sure that I was fully hydrated.

I wasn't very prepared, though...I forgot about giving blood until Friday morning, so after work I had to book it over to the nearest running store, Berkeley Running Company, before they closed and find a hydration belt. I've seen some at Amazon, but they use sizes and don't tell you what a size small means. Good news--they cost the same at Amazon as at the running store and I got to try on the belt before buying it. Bad news--they're still pretty pricy. The belts at the store ranged from $40-$47 depending on how many bottles were on the belt.

They guy working there was super friendly and helpful--which totally made me want to buy even more there just because he was nice (I'm such a sucker for that)--I don't remember his name, but I'm going to call him Andy, he looked lke an Andy. They had the Helium Fuel Belt and I tried on the medium first--he had warned me that the belts tended to run small. It was a little big, so I tried on the small and it fit perfectly (for reference, my waist is 24.5 inches). The belts come with either two or four 8 ounce bottles...I went with the two bottle belt in pink. I'm not sure I'd really need all four bottles during a run (and during the run last week, I only ended up drinking one bottle).

Now the bottles and the little pouch lie on the back. So, there was an adjustment I had to make during the first part of my run. Even though it's only 16 ounces of water, it added a little bit of weight to my back. Not enough to fall over, but I noticed it. Whenever I needed a drink, I'd turn the belt a little bit and pull out the bottle--it was just too difficult to twist my arm. I had a bag of Sharkies (I deleted my post on them by accident, but eventually I'll get back to writing up my thoughts on those) in the belt pouch along with my keys, making it easy to quickly grab one.

Now I have 3 pink running-related items--and I'm really not even a pink girl. It's definitely growing on me, though.

~eca.