Three or four years ago I got a pair of LL Bean Cresta pants, which proved to be very satisfactory hiking pants: Fit me, okay in rain or wind, sturdy enough, excellent pockets for hiking.
(They turned out not to be sturdy enough to stand up to the depredations of a puppy, but that’s neither here nor there.)
That winter I bought a pair of Crest lined pants, which turned out to be similarly excellent: All the things I liked about their summer pants, plus nicely warm, without being so bulky or so insulated as to be a problem.
I’ve had them for a couple of winters now, but until this year, I didn’t actually wear them much. It’s quite typical to have two or three or four really cold days in a winter, maybe even two periods like that. But really, one pair of lined pants nicely does the trick. I wear them for my dog walks until the cold breaks. Then I wash them, and they’re available for the next cold snap.
This year has been different. Cold, cold, and more cold. More than a week ago I looked at the forecast, and realized that I’d be better off with a second pair of these pants.
So, I ordered a second pair. They came yesterday. So last night I put my previous pair in the laundry and today I wore my new pants for my first two dog walks.
Once again, most satisfactory.
(It’s too hard to take a selfie that includes my pants, so instead here’s a picture of Ashley. I wanted to give her neck a good scritching, so I took her collar off, so she’s all naked.)
It was way too cold to try to get a picture of Ashley in her jacket. But I did want to report that she was a Very Good dog, and did the needful when I took her out in the bitter, bitter cold.
Since I was wearing a silk base layer, a mock-T, and my heavy Dale of Norway sweater under my Alaska pipeline coat, I was warm enough to stay outside for an extra three minutes, and shovel our little sidewalk.
I didn’t bother salting after. And these temperatures, what’d be the point?
Simply because they occur together in the winter, I tend to lump the cold in with the dark, as things I dislik about winter. But they are not really the same at all.
The dark is a trigger for my Seasonal Affective Disorder, a legitimate pathology—happily in remission this past decade or so.
By comparison, the cold is really no big deal at all. In fact, it’s not even that I particularly dislike the cold so much as that I like the heat. I’m rarely happier than when I’m out being active in the sun, wearing as little clothing as is socially acceptable.
As much by luck as by design, as the weather turned cold this year I thought to turn back to my blog posts tagged cold from the past few years. I vaguely remembered I’d had some thoughts on Getting my mind right with the cold, and I was right. And some of those thoughts were very useful as the weather turned cold the past few days. In particular, I was reminded that the body’s reactions to cold are all movements, and I’m all about getting in movement.
In the right doses, cold is a hormetic stressor, producing adaptation beyond whatever is necessary to recover from the stress itself. With that in mind, it is perhaps valuable to dress one level less warmly than the level for maximum comfort, and I try to do that sometimes. Other times, when I feel like I need maximum coziness, I don’t hesitate to put on precisely the right layers to achieve that.
Since I have to go out in the cold at least four times a day, just to walk the dog, I have many opportunities to get that right (or wrong). And having a bit of resilience as far as the cold goes is pretty handy.
I put Ashley in her new coat, put on my Alaska Pipeline coat, and went out into the bitter, bitter cold. Ashley would have liked to come right back in, but I made her stay outside until she had accomplished a couple of very important tasks. #dogsofmastodon
At the airport it’s currently -9°F, with a wind chill of -34°F (-37°C).
For years I had trouble running into the winter. I eventually figured out that I’d simply had the wrong idea about how to do it. I’d imagined that if I just continued running through the fall, I’d gradually ease myself into winter running. That never worked—because there are plenty of warm days (or at least warm hours) through early fall, and then in middle or late fall there is (identifiable only in retrospect) a last warm day, and then it’s cold nearly every day until late March or early April. So even if I ran through fall, if I chose to get in my runs during the warm hours, I wouldn’t actually develop tolerance for the cold, the wardrobe for handling it, or the skill at picking the right garments.
A couple of years ago I failed to run through the fall, and then decided to develop a winter running habit anyway. I bought a few pieces of cold-weather gear—plenty, because I was generally only running once or twice a week.
I started with the sweats I wear to teach taiji, and then I added two pairs of tights—one sort of classic running tights, and then another pair of fleece tights, that ought to be good down to colder than I’m every likely to try to run in.
For tops I generally wore a regular sweatshirt over a regular cotton t-shirt. Then I got some short- and long- sleeved merino t-shirts, which are vastly better as a base layer. I also dug out a capilene half-zip top that my dad gave me a few years ago, which was just the thing when it got a little colder.
I also got a washable merino knit hat in high-viz yellow, and two different pairs of gloves in high-viz yellow—first a pair from the dollar store, which were not nearly warm enough, then a pair from Amazon that I think was marketed to people directing traffic, that were dramatically more high-viz, but still not quite warm enough.
Me in my tights, capilene top, high-viz hat, vest, and gloves
Now that I’m in my third year of winter running—and now that I’m running more times per week—I’ve added a few more pieces of winter running garb.
I bought a third pair of high-viz gloves, these from Illinois Glove company, which are finally warm enough, and almost as high-viz as the previous pair.
Last winter I picked up a pair of Janji Mercury Track Pants, which are wonderful. Size medium fits me perfectly, they’re warm enough down to well below freezing (and I rarely run when it’s below freezing, because of slipping hazards). I liked them so much I picked up a second pair last year, and just now got a third pair (because a couple of weeks ago I wanted to go for a run and both of the first two were already in the laundry).
I’ve gone running five or six times in the last couple of weeks, at temperatures ranging from right at freezing up to maybe 50℉, and so far I’ve managed to nail it each time as far as matching the warmth of the clothing to the conditions outside.
I have one more piece of running gear that I’ve ordered, but that hasn’t arrived: a headlight. Normally I just don’t run when it’s dark. (Since I don’t work a regular job, I have the freedom to choose to run only during daylight.) But a couple of times in the last few weeks, I wanted to go for a run that would start in the daylight, but might not finish until after dark. I figured that a headlight might be very useful as a just-in-case piece of safety equipment, even if I didn’t plan on doing much nighttime running. I ordered this Spriak Wide-Beam headlight, which seems like it would serve my purpose as emergency safety gear. If I end up running in the dark on purpose, rather than by accident, I’ll be tempted to step up to this Petzl Headlamp that offers 3x to 15x the battery life, and what looks like a rather better system for fitting the whole thing on your head, but costs 10 times as much ($200 vs. $20).
(FYI: Those Amazon links are affiliate links. The non-Amazon links are not.)
If circumstances develop in any sort of interesting direction—if it turns out that the gear I’ve got doesn’t cut it for this or that sort of conditions, or if I decide that I need some other bit of fancy running kit, or if one of the things I’ve got turns out to be even more suitable than I’ve already described, I’ll go ahead to write another post.
If you’ve got great winter running gear, I’d be very interested to hear about it! Comment below or reach out on social media or by email (see my contact page for ways to connect to me).
Last year I used my consumerist impulses to motivate myself to get out for runs—I’d buy running gear, and then feel like I had to go for runs to justify the purchase. 🏃🏻♂️ This year I’m running anyway. But that doesn’t mean I can’t buy new running gear. This handsome top is perfect for runs when it’s just about freezing.
