Amphipod Belt Review

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with water belts basically since I started running. My former water belt was a one bottle, front-snap clasp belt.

I absolutely hated it.

I only wore the belt when I knew I had no other option and there were many times when I should have worn it, but didn’t. Often on my longer runs (or during any runs in the summer heat) I wanted to bring water but it just wasn’t worth it to me considering how much I hated wearing the only water belt I owned.

Why did I hate it so much?

It sagged in the back. It rode up in the front. The bottle was hard to get in and out of its pouch. The bottle didn’t hold enough water for my longest runs. The bottle bounced quite a bit. The food mesh compartments were right on either side of the water belt next to an uncomfortably sweat-prone location on my body.

The Amphipod belt has eliminated most of those problems.

The Good

• With four different water bottles, I can take a mix of water, food or Gatorade. My standard has been two waters, one Gatorade and one food.
• If I’m going on a shorter run and don’t need to take as much, the bottles easily slide off the belt, eliminating unnecessary weight.
• There is an additional pouch for food, keys, phone, etc. Also there is a smaller attached compartment on the belt that will hold keys or small iPods. (It took me a little while to even notice it actually).
• The bottles are fairly easy to get in and out of their clasps. I doubt much could really be improved upon in this area without making them more prone to falling out. So I’ll consider it a positive.

The Bad

• The bottles do need to be placed pretty precisely to avoid the belt riding up. This is being a little nit-picky I suppose, since it is vastly superior in this area compared to my last water belt.
• The belt hooks together with a Velcro clasp. While this makes it easy to put on and adjust, I do worry that the Velcro connection will deteriorate with time. Hopefully I’m wrong on this though.

Conclusion

As you can see, the pros far outweigh the cons as far as I’m concerned. I doubt any water belt could actually be completely free of the concerns I have regarding the Amphipod.

If you have any trouble forcing yourself to carry water and food on your runs I highly recommend trying out an Amphipod. They have a variety of styles and sizes. The fact that it has made me happy to carry water on almost every run is probably the biggest compliment I can give.

If you want to help out Step 1 Runner, you can buy the Amphipod off of Amazon.

What do you use to carry water while running?