“Running any given route in the rain makes you feel 50 per cent more hardcore than covering the same route on a sunny day”
Unwritten Rules of Running
What about in the snow???
Daley Thompson told how he would train on Christmas Day just to get a small advantage over his rivals who would not be so dedicated. Training in the snow is a bit like that! With that in mind, today I went out for some drills and strides on the playing field – if you look closely you can still see my footprints!!
So, given the weather we’ve been enduring, I present the Running Coaching top tips for running in the depth of winter.
1. Wear appropriate clothing
Cold and wet weather are rendering infinitely worse by a driving wind. Have you ever been out in the rain when the driving wind has made every raindrop feel like a needle in you? It is essential to wear clothing that will enable you to maintain your core temperature. Many companies nowadays manufacture clothing designed for freedom of movement in the worst of weathers. You will also need to pay attention to your footwear. Today I was wearing cross country spikes for extra traction on a snowy field.
2. Stay warm!!
Intrinsically linked with #1, is keeping warm. Cold muscles are much easier to pull; cold bodies are much more susceptible to infections and viruses. Warming up is also very important in the cold. I did some kettlebell exercises inside in the warm today before braving the snow to warm up the muscles and get the blood flowing. Once back inside, out of wet clothes, a quick stretch and then into a warm shower.
3. Choose your running surface
Mainly runners spend most of their time running on tarmac. Once covered with compacted snow or a heavy frost though, tarmac can become treacherously slippery. When conditions are like that, the risk of injury is again very high. Running off road is a much better options. You could run laps of a sports field or diagonals of a football field where you run fast from one corner diagonally to the other corner and then jog along the goal line before repeating. If you have the option of running on trails or cross country, so much the better.
4. Use a treadmill
For runners who are members of a gym (or are likely enough to own a treadmill!), this is an option. The great marathon runner Ingrid Kristiansen did a lot of her training on a treadmill in the depths of the Norwegian winter. This is not entirely without problems though. Some gyms get a mite upset with you if you want to do you Sunday 20 miler on their treadmill preventing others from using it. I was once a member of a gym who introduced a time limit of 3 minutes per piece of apparatus!! The biggest cautionary note though is for those runners who don’t usually run on a treadmill and start due to the inclement weather. Any change of running surface presents an elevated risk of injury. When you start you treadmill training program, cut back on your mileage for the first couple of weeks to allow you body time to adjust.
5. Cross train
For those of us not in training for a Spring marathon and with no important races on the horizon, it can be beneficial to use the bad weather as an excuse for some cross training. If you have had a long period of sustained training, you body will benefit from some respite from the pounding running gives it. A couple of weeks of cycling or cross country skiing on an exercise machine in the warm will result in little loss of fitness but may prevent an injury from occurring.
What’s your best tip for keeping fit in the cold weather? Please leave a comment and let us know.
Train Smart!
