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 1^st of 6 videos, with strategies on how to keep your head warm. (Update: And by this week, I mean next week (December 29 – January 2). I published this on the wrong day! Sorry about that. Here’s a preview of what’s coming starting the week after Christmas.)

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 Head

The first thing that I’m going to get into is what to wear on your head. Your head is a great place for you to lose a lot of heat. So in warmer conditions you don’t want to wear too much. And in cooler conditions it’s really important to keep your head warm. The easiest thing to wear is to just have a ski cap, and something that wicks is optimum. If you start to get too warm, you can always flip the edges up and then that will let off little bit of heat by your ears and cool you off pretty well.

If it isn’t all that cold out there, you go either bare headed or with just a normal running hat. That will keep the sun out of your eyes. Another option is to wear a head band which will keep your ears warm while still letting a little bit of heat escape through the top of your head.

And for those really cold days you can wear a balaclava, which will cover not just your head but also your neck and, depending on how big it is, your shoulders. The nice thing about having a balaclava is that you can wear it over the back of your jacket and if it’s snowing it will keep the snow from getting down your shirt. And you can also cover over your face and keep your face warm that way. (At least until you warm up.)

And just as if you are walking you can always carry a scarf around which is useful for keeping your neck warm or you can also wrap that around your head as well.

If you have some, it’s good to wear sunglasses as well. Not only will they protect you from the sun, but if it’s windy out it will keep your eyes from drying out or freezing shut. So I like to wear in the Winter time some big sun glasses that cover lot of my face.