Brrrrrr.....
Dress for Success
in the cold...
 Heading outdoors for a workout this time of year is always interesting.
A cold winter morning can easily entice you to hit the snooze button a couple of extra times in the morning, and when you get home from work, it gnaws at you to have a nice, warm dinner instead of going out for that run in the dark.
Find the motivation to get out that door into the frosty air! Let the Winter weather challenge be your version of Kenyan high-altitude training. Think of the mental edge this will give you in the coming months- knowing that you were out there when it was cold & nasty when your competitors were indoors hiding.
But first you need to get out that door!
The trick, of course, is to dress right, which can be a challenge. The rules of running in the cold are to dress as if it were much warmer - ten to twenty degrees warmer.
One of the the important things is a good base layer. Craft and Under Armour, among others, have a wide selection of items for that base layer. The outer layer, especially if you are riding, has to be windproof.
Those of you venturing outside have come to realize;  in addition to cold, you've got to deal with the wind. So for cycling you need to dress as if it was at least 20 degrees colder.
As you may have read above, a brave few of us have been riding outdoors out in this lovely weather, driven by love of riding outdoors when others won't and a passionate loathing of spinning. There's nothing wrong with spinning, and many of us train diligently indoors until the Spring,  but being locked into a bike that doesn't really move drives us up the wall. Frustration quickly builds when, drenched in sweat, you pretend to climb and that bike will not move, no matter how hard you pull up on the bars.
So we venture outdoors, free to climb hills but also subject to the elements.
Windstopper-type fabric is essential, and lots of companies make some great stuff. Sugoi and Descente and Pearl Izumi make cycling-specific Jackets and bib tights that keep EVERYTHING out  (wind, rain, sleet, frogs, locusts...), but even with a good outer layer, the first things to get cold are your feet and your hands.
Good old-fashioned wool as well as some of the new technical fabrics such as Mizuno's Breath Thermo do a great job of minimizing the chill with gloves and socks, but as any diabetic can tell you, tight-fitting footware restricts circulation.
The final layer for the feet is neoprene booties, and I've when it gets below 35 or so found success with a pair of those toe-warming heating pads they sell in the sporting goods stores stuck to my socks by the toes. At $2 a pop they are a reasonable expense for a weekly long ride.
The bottom line: aside from the cost of some of the better clothing and icy surfaces, there are almost no restrictions on working out no matter what the weather, so get out there and run & ride and know that you'll have a cold leg up on the competition this Spring and Summer!
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