Cold weather running

Running:
As was the case last week, Monday was an off day.  I did go 20 minutes on the bike just to break a sweat and then worked on core exercises, stretching, and weights.  Tuesday I got out for a lunch time run.  The usual 7.5 miles in 1:03:33.  It was nice with temps near 30 and the sun out.  You could actually feel some warmth from it.  

Since not much else is going on I thought I would take some time today to blog about running in the cold and bypass any hunting or gardening update.  The cold really doesn't bother me once I get out there.  The motivation is affected somewhat in that it's a little harder to get everything ready and get out there especially those dark and cold early morning runs.  One question I'm always asked is "Don't your lungs hurt from breathing the cold air?".  Really the answer to that for me is no.  The coldest days I'll wear a face mask which warms the air somewhat and on the other days I really don't even notice it.  I suppose if I ran a race where I would be sucking in air hard it could hurt.  It hurts in the summer sometimes too.  Another question is "Aren't you afraid you are going to slip and get hurt?".  I suppose this could happen, but I'm always aware of this and careful when called for.  I always run on bare pavement if available even if that means running in the tire tracks or even the middle of the road.  I do own a pair of Asics Arctics that have many spikes on the bottom of the shoes for the worst days.  When the snow is dry and cold it's really not slippery.  Wet and slushy conditions are worse.  This typically would be the day after a large snowfall when the road salt and sun haven't finished melting to bare pavement yet.

For clothes, by trial and error I've learned what works for me.  I have a wide variety of gloves, hats, running tights, wind pants, running shirts, wind breaker jackets etc... and adjust to temperatures. Everything is synthetics of some kind.  Cotton is not your friend as a runner and even more so in the cold.  Typically I will wear two layers on my legs.  One pair of running tights and a pair of wind pants.  Again these are of varying thickness and material.  On the coldest days as an example I will wear the heaviest tights along with an insulated wind pant.  On the upper half I typically will wear three layers.  I always wear an Under Armor type shirt first.  Something that fits tighter and wicks sweat away.  This is followed by a breathable shirt of some kind.  Sometimes a turtleneck or zippered type and sometimes just a long sleeve of some kind.  The outer layer is typically a jacket of some type that will break the wind.  Sometime insulated and sometimes not.  For cold, non windy days I will sometimes have the wind break material in the middle layer and a fleece jacket over that.  This keeps me from over heating as the fleece allows some cold to pass to the middle layer.   Remember mittens are warmer than gloves and having a pair that has wind stopping material is important on the coldest days.  Facemask is a must on the coldest days as well.  There are lots of good types of running hats, but I like ones that cover my ears and don't allow the wind to pass through.  Again I adjust the hat if I'm wearing a facemask on the real cold days.