Cold weather running
It might be uncomfortable but it’s not going to kill you.
Hopefully this will help someone and come into their life at the right time to help them understand how to have fun in the cold.
Cold is relative. Cold for me up here in New England is January and February. This time of year it hovers in the mid-teens Farnaheit and dips into the below-zero territory at night. It seldom goes above freezing. If it does it’s only during the brief afternoon hour.
Sunshine is in short supply as well. Which creates a problem for runners who want to get out in the mornings or want to get out in the afternoon.
If you want to have sun and a reasonable temperature, you’ve basically got 1:00 in the afternoon.
Of course, there’s snow and freezing rain and ice and salt on the roads. The trails become very difficult to run on.
Let me say this. Cold is relative. Cold for you may be when it drops into the 40’s. It’s all relative. By this time of year I’m acclimated. I can go outside in my sweatshirt and its fine. Human bodies are amazingly adaptable. The cold isn’t going to kill you. It will cause you to adapt.
To start with, there are only three things, three rules, you need to get right to stay comfortable in the cold.
- Keep your head warm.
This means having good warm hat. You can use specially designed cold weather running hats or any winter hat that covers the ears and wicks sweat. You want it to be nice and thick to keep the heat in. You want it to have enough volume so you can cover as much head as necessary.
Remember, if you’re running, you are going to sweat. When you sweat the hat is going to get wet. The winter hat needs to stay warm even when it’s wet and icy. This becomes particularly important if you’re going to stop exercising at some point, like a long porta-john stop or a walk break. The hat needs to still keep the heat in your head.
If you’re out for a long time in sub-freezing weather that sweat that wicks through the hat is going to freeze. You will get sweatcicles. It won’t kill you to have the outside layer frozen, it actually acts as an insulator.
But, bottom line the first rule of staying warm in outside exercise is to have a good hat. The head is where your body sends a large portion of the blood and energy. Keep that warm.
- Keep your hands warm.
Rule number two is to keep your hands warm. Get some good winter gloves. Or even mittens. Or you can layer up gloves and mittens.
I find that most of the gloves you can buy that are specifically designed for cold weather running aren’t warm enough. More than once I have bought winter running gloves and found that the technical fabric is great for wicking sweat but does a poor job of retaining heat.
Designed winter running stuff tends to be too form fitting in general. That’s great for racing, but If I’m out on a long training run I’ll gladly sacrifice the aerodynamics for a nice big sweater with puffy sleeves that I can pull my hands into.
This time of year I default to a big pair of winter mittens. No fingers, just the mitten. It makes it hard to hold anything in your hand but your hands stay warm.
You don’t want gloves that are going to retain so much water that they freeze, or even get heavy with water. It totally sucks to have two blocks of ice on the ends of your arms.
You can also use hand warmers. Those chemical hand warmers work well enough. They are not a substitute for good gloves but can help in a pinch. There are electric hand warmers that you can put in your pockets that are really warm, but a bit clunky and I’m not sure how well they’d stand up to the toxic runner juices over the long haul.
- Keep your neck warm.
Rule number three, which is probably just an extension of rule one, is to keep your neck warm.
Keeping your neck warm, keeps your head warm. All that blood that’s going up to your big head passes through your neck. You can’t leave this territory bare and expect to stay warm.
There are a number of clothing strategies to keep the neck warm. Of course a gaiter is ready-made for this. A gaiter is a tube of material that you slip over your head to wear around your neck. This covers up that transition point from you core to your throat.
I have both thin, technical gaiters that are worn under your sweater or jacket color and a bigger fleece on that you can wear as an outer layer. If you don’t have a gaiter you can use a scarf. If things get really cold you can get a balaclava, which is a combination of the hat and the gator in one piece of clothing.
That’s it. Keep your head warm and your hands warm and you’ll be fine.
For extra credit you might want to consider the rest of your body.
Some people get cold feet. Running shoes typically don’t have a lot of insulation. There are toe-caps you can buy specifically for running shoes that add an outer layer to keep the wind from blowing through. The dirt-bag runners just use duct tape.
Good winter tights or pants help keep the legs warm.
For tops you want to layer. I usually go with one or two wicking undershirts with a jacket, sweater or vest over that.
The caution is that you can be too warm. If you get too warm you sweat and it freezes and that can be uncomfortable. As your layering up try to have stuff you can unzip or vent if you start to get too warm.
One last thing to consider is the time it takes to get into all this stuff. I can’t tell you how many hours of my life I have spent wandering around my house looking for a particular pair of gloves or hat. It pays to organize everything and have it ready to go.
Likewise, when your done, you’ve got this massive pile of wet stuff. Hang it up to dry, or wash it right away so it doesn’t start to create new life forms, which it will if you leave it crumpled in a wet pile on the floor.
I could go on and on about running in the cold but I’ll leave you with this…
It’s ok to be cold. It may sound awful to you to be out when it’s single digits and dark but it has its own beauty.
Sometimes I’ll pause and look up at that quiet January sky with all the stars and breathe in the silence of the moment, stripped bare and sleeping in the starkness of this beautiful world. I
t’s stunning. It’s a gift.
I am humbled and grateful or the opportunity to be alone in it.