This a very common question from beginner trail/ultra runners with regards to their hydration needs: “should I use hand-held bottles or a camel back/water bladder?”. I remember asking the same question at a local road running shop when I first started trail running and they told me hand-helds will lead to injury. Well I did not take their advice I picked up a copy of Trail Runner Magazine and looked at what the pros use and low and behold they all use hand-helds so that is what I went with in my first ultra. I never got an injury either 
. But is that the right choice now? A lot of the bladder systems have improved and are very light weight and allow rapid re-filling, you also save some energy by not having to carry/hold onto your water supply with your hands. In a shorter trail race if you know you are going to take in only 1-2 litres of water you may want to consider trying one of the new lightweight bladder systems by Nathan or some other company that makes quality lightweight gear. But for the long races I still think hand-helds are the way to go they force you to drink more fluid and you can have one bottle of water and one of electrolyte/carbohydrate mixture (it’s better to drink water with food) and probably the most important feature of hand-helds is you can monitor exactly how much fluid you are taking in. One con with the hand-held is you should train with them especially on long runs before using them in a race situation because it does take a few runs to adjust to running with something in your hands. Anyways that is just my opinion I am sure there are others who think bladder systems are the only way to go.
Hand-helds vs Bladders
September 13th, 2007 by Scott · 3 Comments
Tags: Trail Running
3 responses so far ↓
1 josh // Sep 14, 2007 at 10:47 am
i’ve mostly used handhelds, but on a long run with some friends earlier this year (20 miles around the perimeter of tilden park in berkeley, ca), i decided to go with a north face hydration backpack (hammerhead) because our refilling options were not great. i had purchased it months before but never really had a good reason to use it.
to be honest, i didn’t love it. it worked ok, but it felt like a lot of extras i didn’t totally need, and i found myself having to readjust it and goof around with the bladder/drinking tube a few times. my guess is that there are better options nathan probably has it down better than tnf, and it looks like inov8 has some new hydration products out or coming out soon. for now, though, i’ll stick to my nathan handheld with a few nuun tablets in the pocket and just make sure i plan a route with a drinking fountain.
2 Scott // Sep 14, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Funny I was just looking at the North Face hamerhead and it was bulky. I am going to start doing the run commute thing I think I will go with a Gregory pack their gear is super light weight and well designed.
3 Tim // Sep 17, 2007 at 6:46 am
I used a hand held in my first 50 miler (north face ec in DC) and it worked well for all the reasons pointed out previously: made me think about drinking, easy for the aid station folks to fill while I ate, etc. I don’t like wearing a shirt when I run, so having a belt or backpack on is out of the question without a shirt. My arms did start to cramp late in the race.
I did recently purchase the Ultimate Direction Access (one bottle waist pack) and it seems comfortable. I’m going to try it out at the start of the Tussey Mountainback, though I’ll have my hand helds in drop bags.
I’ve often wondered whether an armband (a la mp3 type strap) would work somehow for hydration carrying.