When I was looking for the best that suits me and taking some of my friends' opinions, there are a bunch of things I paid attention to:
• Most of them have "room" to carry a lot of other (than water) stuff. First of all, when you are running, you won't carry any 'stuff'. The most you carry are your ID, car keys, a small bunch of gel packs (which might be in your pocket anyways), and may be your mobile phone. So, I didn't see a reason to have more room to accommodate any 'stuff'. No matter how empty these "rooms" are, they are going to add weight. So, get a bag that fits your hydration needs. Pretty much every backpack has room for the ID/Keys/phone kind of storage.
• My friend suggested me to also get a cleaning kit, especially the one that can clean the tube. Trust me, I can't thank her enough. Make sure you get this cleaner as well along with your backpack. The tube gets so dirty so quickly, you have no idea!!
• Should I have a back pack that has a technologically advanced back gel structure (for air flow) etc.? Honestly, No. If you are riding the bike, these vented backs make sense as you would bend forward that would let air pass through the tunnels and you actually have the speed to do that. When you are running, these won't help. Once your back is wet, it stays wet. There is no way out. So, don't even bother. Just go with the light weight option.
Anyway, with these and few other observations, I narrowed down on CamelBak's Zoid (2010 model). Here are the things I liked about it:
• Light weight, holds what I need. This can hold up to 72oz of liquid. easily covers my full marathon distance and lot more, as I consume about 2 oz per mile.
• Has room for exactly what I would want to carry on my runs. My car keys, an expired license (in case I can't make it back and someone has to help me, I carry my expired license for ID when I can't carry my wallet). I don't carry my phone with me on my runs but this pack has enough room to hold the phone, an mp3 player if you need music on your runs as well as few gel packs, and a bit more.
• There is an adjustable belt that holds together the shoulder straps on the front. You can adjust the height of this belt to make sure the bag is snug to your body and won't wobble around.
Here is my experience using this:
• After my first run with this, my shoulders hurt. Not sure if that is because I was sub-consciously adjusting my shoulders to hold this weight or the weight itself causes this. But I got used to it by the 3rd run. You won't even notice it after that.
• The water inside the bladder stays at the temperature you started with. But the water in the tube quickly gets the temperature of the environment. For me, this makes no sense. I drink about 2 oz at a time and that pretty much means, I drink only the water in the tube at any given time. So keep that in mind.
• While CamelBak advertises a certain capacity, with the way the bladder is designed, it is next to impossible to really fill it to the advertised capacity. So, figure out your hydration needs and go for the next high capacity. If you need 30 oz, go for a 50 oz pack. If you need 50 oz, go for a 70 oz pack.
• By about 2 miles into the run, I'm all sweaty and the back is wet and the pack doesn't help. Nothing against this model, this is an issue with any backpack as such. But if you have two layers of clothes (which you should, on a long run), this is not much of an issue.
• On my first run, while the shoulders were uneasy, I found another major annoying issue. The water inside the pack keeps bouncing and making noise. It gets very annoying very quickly. I figured a way to fix it on my second run. When you fill the pack, hang it upside down, slowly squeeze the pack while pressing the mouth piece open. Do so until you clear all the air and the water comes out of the mouth piece. This worked fantastic. No more noise and it was a quiet run!
Overall, I give this one about 4 stars out of 5.
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