Run to Win

All of this week I will be sharing some tips on Winter Running Apparel, with some strategies on how to keep yourself warm, safe and comfortable in cold and dark running conditions. Today is the 5^th of 6 videos, with strategies on how to keep your feet warm and firmly planted on the ground, as well as how to protect your skin from the sun.

Hello. This is Blaine Moore from RunToWin.com and I’m going to show you a few things about winter running apparel so that you can go out and be prepared for the colder weather as it comes in.

Your Feet

Once you get down to your feet, you have couple of options. You don’t want to wear cotton socks for the same reason you don’t want to wear cotton anywhere else. I really like Thorlos socks. They are nice and thick. They’ll keep your feet very warm. If you have shoes that are really tight then they are not very good for those kind of shoes because they are pretty thick. You might also want to wear some socks that ride a little bit higher up on your legs and then you can wrap them underneath your pants or under your tights. And Wright Socks makes really good pairs of those.

If you are running in icy conditions you are going to want to have a good grip on the road. So one thing to consider is putting something like Stabilicers or Yak Trax on your feet. Basically what the Stabilicers are it’s a crampon for your shoes that you wear and it’s just got some screws down at the bottom that give you a good grip. The problem with these is that can collect snow underneath of them. And they are heavy and they can fall off of your feet. I don’t run in these anymore. I liked them a lot when I did use them, but they’re just a little bit too heavy for me now. So I only wear them on my boots when I’m shoveling the driveway.

What I like to do is put screws directly into my shoes. It’s much lighter, it’s much cheaper and it’s a lot more effective. So I have a video on runtowin.com already on how to put screws in your shoes. It’s really straightforward. Just buy some sheet metal screws, screw them right into the bottom with the head of the screw facing down. It will give you some great grip.

Yak Trax are another option. I’ve never used them. I prefer just using screws so I go with that method.

Your Skin

One other thing you might want to consider is to make sure that you have sunscreen on. Even though it’s the winter time, the sun can still be very bright and especially if you are running on snow or if you are doing any kind of lake running, then the sun can be coming down at you from above and reflecting off of the ice or the snow into any exposed areas of your skin. Which can warm you up quite a bit as well as give you a good sunburn.

This week last year used a few anecdotes to get some points across and commented on some recent news.

• Sometimes (usually) it is not such a bad thing to get lost on a run; it can help you learn new routes.
• When you have trouble with dogs, it will usually because the owner neglects them in some way, shape or form. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to come after you. Sometimes, though, a leash just isn’t enough. Ice can play a part in that too.
• I found a website that helped you to determine what you needed more to qualify for Boston, speed or endurance.
• On the news front, the USATF extended their drug policy to coaches, which I think was a good move.
• Are you having trouble losing weight? Perhaps you are doing too much aerobic exercise. An Alwyn Cosgrove inspired article.
• This week two years ago, I continued my series on animated exercises by demonstrating how to do a prone leg curl, and gave a great tip for how to warm up cold bars in your home gym when you are exercising. I also reviewed stabilicers, which are great for maintaining traction in icy conditions when you don’t want to put screws directly into your shoes.

This week last year was even lighter than last week. The articles that I did write, though, were all well worth reading.

• I continued my animated series by demonstrating how to do a prone leg curl.
• I wrote a review of stabilicers, which make it much easier to walk and run when you have a slick surface to go over. They are not a perfect solution, but they certainly help.
• Scott was having some trouble with cold bars in his home gym, so I offered him a suggestion on how to warm up the cold bars before the workout rather than trying to warm up his hands between sets. Not only is my method safer, but you can also use it as a cheap and fast heating pad.

This morning I woke up to snow and some rapid accumulation. It has snowed before this year, but it had all melted before I began running again after my last marathon. As such, today has to be the latest in the season that I have ever had a first snow run; that includes when I spent the winter in Florida.

Running in the snow is not much different than running in the rain, except that you will probably be warmer. Dress in layers, protect your eyes, and cover your head to keep yourself warm and dry in both types of conditions.

Some differences to consider when running in the snow is that your footing may be much less sure. The plows did not start passing my house until at least 2 hours after I finished my run this morning, so there was no sand and all the snow was where it fell or where random vehicle traffic kicked it. I dug out my stabilicers, which are crampons for running shoes. I really need to replace the cleats, which I will probably do this afternoon after they dry. They still kept my feet planted on the slick roads, which was the important thing. I also used my headlamp with the red LED lit, just to provide a tiny bit more visibility to myself while I was out there.

I love running when it is snowing. I prefer it when there is no traffic to speak of, but driving somewhere to go running was not really an option I would have considered today. Layering up, making myself visible, and making sure that I had some grip on my shoes gave me a pleasurable run. Take a look out your window; maybe you can have a fun snow run as well.

Running (or walking) outside in the winter can be both difficult and dangerous. When the ground is slick, it can be easy to lose your footing and difficult to change directions if necessary. If you enjoy running across frozen lakes and ponds (as I do) then you have to try to stay where the snow has drifted just to get some traction. A couple of years ago I was buying some new shoes at Sportshoe Center, and I found a product called Stabilicers that really helped with the safety problems. They are not a cure all for everything, but they do make it a lot easier and get rid of the need to actually run in the roads.
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