Ultimate Direction Clutch Water Bottle Review 2024 | The Strategist

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The Strategist happens to be full of runners, so this week, we hit the ground running (literally), testing tons of running gear and interviewing experts to give every kind of runner all the intel they might need. Welcome to Running Week.

Running has been part of my life since middle-school track and high-school cross-country. Back then, I didn’t think much about hydration (I was mainly focused on race times), and when I started to get back into running after college, I thought it was somehow more badass to go multiple miles without hydrating. I quickly learned (thanks to the terrible headaches and cramping I was getting on these long runs) how wrong I was. And in learning more about hydration, I realized that distance running causes you to lose a ton of electrolytes and that I was simply not getting enough of them. I was dehydrated.

I didn’t fuel properly partly because of logistics: It can be awkward to carry food and liquids while moving, let alone a phone and keys. That’s why gels are a common solution for a lot of runners — they pack carbohydrates and other nutrients into a portable format that stashes easily into a pocket. But even then, many gels often don’t have a lot of electrolytes (more on that below).

The problem is most non-gel electrolyte supplements are meant to be mixed with water. I had prided myself on carrying only a set of keys on my runs, but it became clear that this needed to change. The best option for me was to bring along an electrolyte drink mix in a handheld bottle.

Once I knew I needed one, I asked my runner friends for recommendations. Two of them suggested this handheld bottle from Ultimate Direction, and I was sold. It has been a total game changer for my training. In the past few months of running with the Clutch, I have been able to run longer and to fuel more consistently by taking small sips of my electrolyte drink, following the oft-repeated marathon advice of fueling “early and often.”

Allow me to get on my soapbox for a second: Energy gels have electrolytes, but the vast majority don’t have enough, at least for me. (A single Gu packet has 55 milligrams of sodium, whereas one Nuun electrolyte tablet contains 300 milligrams of sodium). On long runs, I need more than 200 milligrams of sodium, which is why I prefer gels with more electrolytes. But regardless of the sodium content, I don’t like pounding lots of gels and taking in those extra carbs, especially when I don’t have any water to wash them down with.

Any handheld bottle could make hydrating more convenient, but the Clutch has a few well-designed features that make it an especially good option. It has a Velcro strap that secures comfortably on the back of my hand (without any chafing, even on my longest runs) and two elastic bands that act as tethers to keep the bottle in the sleeve. Though it’s not intended to fit a phone, I tuck mine into the sleeve with the bottle and store my keys, a credit card, and some emergency gels in the side pocket, eliminating the dreaded jangling in my shorts. And unlike other hard plastic handhelds, the Clutch’s soft silicone flask cuts down on sloshing: It shrinks in my hand and gets smaller with each sip I take.

At 16 ounces, the Clutch is the ideal size for road running in a city. Back when I lived in New Mexico and frequently went on long, remote trail runs, I often wore hydration vests — I have a few from Ultimate Direction — which are designed to store multiple silicone flasks on your chest to keep your hands free. But now that I live in New York, these vests feel like overkill, at least for me. Plus, if I need to fill my bottle on extra-sweaty days, I’m never more than a few miles from a park water fountain.

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