Price: $895
Weight: 19 lb.
The right stroller for: Parents who want to run fast and swing their arms freely
This jogging stroller looks like an ancient Roman chariot but has modern, techy design features with real benefits. Instead of pushing your kid, you strap the KidRunner to your waist and tow your little gladiator behind you. The setup let our testers run more naturally than with other models, freely swinging our arms instead of being tethered to a handlebar. Plus, the slim design slices through the wind, so you don’t feel like you're pushing a sailboat on a windy day. The padded waist harness balances weight just right, so you feel only a slight tug when accelerating or motoring uphill. And we love that its gentle rocking motion sent our kid to dreamland on nearly every run.
Kid-Friendly Features
The most obvious reason your kid will love this rig is that he or she can actually see you. And you can hear them more clearly (then again, maybe this isn’t such a good thing). The pod is much like the Thule Chariot Cross: Your tot sits close to the road, enclosed in a little bubble. This setup makes the entire trailer stable at high speeds, even with larger kids—you can use KidRunner until they’re about 4 years old. It also means your child can bring along a stuffed animal with little worry about losing it.
On The Run
The biggest adjustment may be in getting used to towing your child. Our tester needed a few runs to get the weight balance just right so the waist harness sat comfortably—you adjust it by rotating the cockpit forward or back depending on the size of the child. But, when he did, he found it smoothed out accelerations and reduced any bouncing from fast strides. One downside is that our tester didn’t have a weather cover on the stroller, so he sprayed his son with pine needles during a fast-paced run. Beyond any physical characteristics of the stroller, be prepared for a lot of strange looks as you jog past nonrunners.
Portability
The KidRunner is probably the bulkiest stroller you’re going to own. If you really must save space, you can remove the forks—the connecting arms between you and the cockpit—and wheels by unscrewing the quick-release connectors. It’s still quite a bit larger than most other jogging strollers when folded, and not easily transported in small cars.
Jeff is Runner-in-Chief for Runner's World, guiding the brand's shoes and gear coverage. A true shoe dog, he's spent more than a decade testing and reviewing shoes. In 2017, he ran in 285 different pairs of shoes, including a streak of 257 days wearing a different model.
