Review: ZipVit Race Belt

So this week, looks like lots of posts are going to be dedicated to crap that happened from the marathon, and today is not exception to that.  I bought this race belt back in April to deal with the awesome and elegant solution that I had last year when I had to pack 8 gels for the marathon.

Now during any marathon, or really and kind of road race you're going to see aid stations that usually have water.  For shorter races that's all that you need, you have no need for gels or gatorade or stuff like that.  Half marathons and marathons will usually provide you with gatorade and/or gels.  The only problem with that is when you have nutrition snobs like me that are very specific with what they down and are worried about running into problems you end up bringing your own food.  Last year I found a brilliant way to carry gels, although unbelievably unelegant.  It involved clipping gels to the waistband of my running tights.  I used...."purse clips" I have no idea how to describe them other than that, but here's a picture.

The brilliant thing about this last year was that it was super cold, like snowing cold. So by having them up against me, they were kept nice and warm and were not thick as molasses when I had to actually consume them.  This year I thought about getting a race belt and there's a bunch out there but frankly a lot of them just have to much crap on there.  Pockets for cellphones water bottles etc etc.  The zipvit belt that I got is nice because it's minimalist.  Gels and race number, that's it.

It's got loops for up to 10 gels, although I only ran with 9. I had put my racebelt on that morning, number and all but then made a last minute change and actually wore a jacket in which I can stuff all my gels, and then proceeded to put it under the coat.  The gels stay firmly in place, are easy to pull when you need to grab them, and putting on a race number is quite easy.  Just take a hole punch, make a hole, clip....done deal.

Some little niggles that I had with this belt included the fact that belt although comfortable, does seem to bounce a little bit more than I expected.  This probably could've been solved if I cinched it a little bit tighter and this would have prevented the problem.  I think it could have also been helped by having some rubber or silicon grippers on the inside where the gels are held.  The last little thing that I was slightly annoyed at was the fact that I lost one of the buttons that holds the race number on, as I am now unable to affix my race number to the belt.

It's pretty cheap like 5 bucks, so I mean not the end of the world that it's like that but I'm glad I got the belt, made carrying around gels much easier than last year.

~Cheers