Chafing & Water Retention

Once upon a time, I thought that, someday, eventually, when I became a "real" runner, I would not need to carry as much water with me. Because, you know, "real" runners don't carry water, or they just carry those cute little flask sized things (I mean, really... How cure are those tiny little bottles?).

The thing is, though, that, when you're slow as fuck (like me), you're going to be spending a lot more time running. That's a lot more time in the sun, the heat, sweating, exerting. So you're just never going to not need to bring extra water.

I most commonly run with something similar to this:

So the nozzle irritated me and I swapped the bottle out, but otherwise it's the same pack. It carries about 22 ounces of water, and I've usually frozen about half the bottle. It also carries keys, my phone, energy gels and kleenex (really. Have we met?). It does pretty good for up to about 8 miles if it's not extra hot, more if I can get a refill somewhere (hello, Starbucks!).

My last long run before Sunday's 16 miler, though, I had trouble getting a full refill and, as a result, ended up lower than I'd like by the final miles.

So on Sunday I tried taking this for a test run:

I've had it since Christmas (thanks, dad!), so it was about damn time. The problem was that the front pouches sat so far to the side that my arms were rubbing on them & the drinking hose the whole way. Other than that, it worked great, but I was not excited about the potential chafing.

At the halfway point, I made a pit stop at home and swapped the vest out for my waist pack and was able to finish my run (with a little help from 7-11).

So now I get to figure out how to go about bringing enough water with me while not injuring myself or driving myself crazy. For now, I think I'm going to use my waist pack along with this:

The handheld is functional but kind of annoying. Probably better than chafing, though.

In the near future, however, I hope to give one of these a try:

And seriously? How cute are these guys and their video? Just me?