When I’m running longish distances I like to carry water.
There are several problems associated with lugging a bladder-type system…mostly to do with the perpetual taste of plastic and the difficulty of cleaning the damn thing out.
I prefer bottles, but these thrash about asymmetrically and get in the way, even if I run economically (which I usually don’t).
Today’s invention is a belt which has a set of bottles attached. Each ‘bottle’ is effectively a wide hip flask which has notches in which other flasks can slide up and down.
Each flask rests on a spring so that as liquid is drunk from any one it maintains the position of its centre of mass. The centre of mass of the whole system therefore stays nearly in the same position throughout a distance event.
There are only two flasks shown in the figure, one with red liquid and one with blue. The multiflask approach allows a runner to carry several different types of liquid for different stages of a marathon for example. It also lessens the tendency to generate large wave motion inside a single vessel.
