At what point (distance and/or time) do you bring water with you? I am up to about a hour of running, I drink a big glass before and a couple after, but none during. Don't feel like I need it! What about you? How do you carry it?
Heat does make a difference! On hotter days, I should carry some, but like yourself, I hate having something in my hands. Already have my partners leash in my left hand. No water available as I live in the country.I think there's a few variables at play Bill: ambient temp & direct sun, how much heat you are generating (a combination of speed, build, metabolism), relative humidity and whether you are breathing through mouth vs nose, and of course how well hydrated you are at the start (aka how many beers were had the night before...)
That said I'm usually ok without water in training runs up to about 2 hours. I normally run around in circles or on a route that has water fountains so don't carry any. On occasional trails runs of about 6 hours I will take a 2 litre camelback which gets refilled halfway, so 4L all up which gets finished. I don't fancy hand bottles as I find it really important to synchronise my hand/arm movements with my legs (especially when barefoot on variable surfaces) and I just feel having a heavy bottle in one hand would interfere with that.
Those are my favorite runs. I always bring water for those runs because I don't know where I'm going or when ill be back.That run isn't about being done fast or anything, it's just about getting some more time in running easy and enjoying the feel of dirt, grass, mud and rocks under my feet.