I wear my backpack on my front rather than my back, and hug it as I run.
I started doing this after a trip to Tokyo, during which it was brought to my attention that it was rude of me to get on the subway and let my backpack on my back become a hazard to people around me, since I could not see what it was doing behind me.
Creatine is an incredibly powerful intervention. It improves energy management and decreases fatigue at the cellular level, in every single one of your cells. I expect you will notice cognitive enhancements as well as improved energy. However, I personally experience sleep disruptions if I take it on days when I do not exercise. Your mileage may vary, just a note that you might experiment with how much you take and how often you take it if you experience sleeplessness, night sweats, and/or vivid nightmares :)
In my personal experience, cutting carbs makes strength training harder. Strength training uses the anaerobic metabolic pathway, which must run on glycogen, not ketones. Technically your body will use gluconeogenesis to create glycogen from fat to supply your muscles, but this is not a fast process, and in my experience it feels pretty bad the longer you try to do it. I recommend checking out Dr. Mike Israetel on YouTube, specifically his video series “Fat loss made easy” and “muscle building made easy”.