Normally I wouldn't have given this bit of kit a second glance. But a few factors came together during my marathon training that led me to acquire the Camelbak Quick Grip Chill bottle holder. I will, specifically, really only be using this holder for the lead-up to Manchester Marathon 2023, or for the final few weeks of marathon training in any given plan, more generally.
What drove this was practicing nutrition during long marathon training runs. I used to run with a belt that held a water bottle, but those didn't hold enough food. For my own particular metabolism I need to get a lot of calories in during marathon or longer distance runs. I've come to see equivalence to ultra-marathon distances, actually, and the marathon is, for me, just the beginning of an ultra-length run.
What I need for an ultra-length run (and therefore for a marathon), is 250 calories per hour. I start within 30minute max, loading up on calories. Jason Koop has a recipe for rice-balls that have about 120 calories per ball, so I try to eat a couple of these per hour, one every 5-6 km. On a four hour run that's a few rice balls, plus I'll eat gel (home made, with dates), and Kendal's mint blocks, either one about once per hour or so, in good amounts.
Koop recommends (in his book Training Essentials for Ultrarunning) keeping water separate from electrolytes so that you can measure your intake. It's better to be slightly under-hydrated, and slightly over-electrolyted, which I found out the hard way during my first 100k Race to the Stones when I got overhydrated, making my electrolyte levels drop badly.
To fit all the food in, and to avoid carrying a running vest during a marathon run (and this is the difference from my ultra-training, in which I always wear a vest), I started running with a bottle in my hand. Now the problem becomes how to get all that food out of my Camelbak Ultra Running Belt (which it holds easily) while carrying a water bottle.
The answer is: not very easily. I ended up having to hold the bottle under one arm while grappling to get the food out from around back, and sometimes I dropped the bottle, and I also tended to slow down a lot during this whole procedure, which you don't want to do when you're practicing marathon pace during a session.
My front pocket of the Ultra Running Belt was, in addition, holding my phone. I needed to get that phone somewhere else too. So I got the Quick Grip Chill Bottle Holder to hold the bottle and, as a bonus, it also holds my phone.
Now I can use the Ultra Running Belt to hold the sugar and gel up front where the phone used to be, continuing to use the back for the rice balls. With the strap handle around my hand, I can push the bottle up my arm, freeing up both hands, and keeping the bottle from dropping to the ground. During yesterday's long run I was able to keep a pretty good pace, and get down the rice ball I needed, while keeping everything I'm carrying controlled and in position.
On the day of the marathon, I probably won't need to bring the hand held bottle holder, and my phone can move to an arm strap if needed.
I am learning that how I treat the marathon affects how I treat the ultra-marathon, and that they are related. I don't see the ultra as a long marathon, because they are very differently paced, but I do see the marathon as a short ultra, in a way, because of how I fuel the marathon. Without fuel I always hit the wall.
I have consistent half marathon times I'm really happy with at the sub-1:35 pace, but my marathon times are all over the place! I'd like to get them more consistent, and with training to kit and nutrition I'm beginning to feel confident I might finally be able to hit my sub-3:30 goal when I run Manchester on 16 April 2023.
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