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What to Wear When Running in Winter

Winter running can seem like the most unappealing type of exercise. You look outside and it’s dark, cold and probably wet. Nothing is less desirable.

But it is true what they say: there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. The one thing that winter running has above summer running is that it gets better the longer you run. If you’ve ever run on a beautifully sunny day you’ll know how hard it can suddenly become after that first mile. You start to get hot, the sun is beating in your face, you sweat, you’re thirsty… it sucks basically. But at least with winter, though it may look pretty rubbish and miserable, once you get going it’s actually not too bad. As long as you’re prepared.

When it comes to what to wear for winter running, you really do have a lot of choice. The temptation is of course to wear lots of layers so the minute you step outside you’re not cold at all… but within a mile you’re ridiculously warm and sweating. Ideally you want to be cold before you get going, because you will warm up. That first mile might feel horrendous but it does get better.

To give you some tips and guidance for what you could wear for running in the winter, I’ve teamed up with Decathlon, the sports products company.

I tend to graduate my running outfits as it gets colder and colder. So for the beginning of winter I’ll probably choose a long sleeved but fairly thin layer, like the Alenji Kalenji Elio long sleeved jersey.

Having a half-way zip is ideal because you can have it done right to the top as you start but then undo it as you get more warm to provide a bit more ventilation. Also, having thumb holes in the sleeves is a great compromise when it’s not quite cold enough for gloves. Ideally you also want a top that has reflective bits on it, especially as the nights and mornings get darker.

The Kalenji Evolutiv jersey is a step above providing more protection from rain but also has a handy ventilation section where you can uncover the arms and/or chest. You can see in the first picture of the three tops with the arms and chest done up (middle picture) and then how it looks when unzipped (photo above). This is great for those who can’t make their minds up what to wear!

Obviously keeping warm and dry is a high priority for runners, but so is being seen and keeping safe. Having high-vis gear on is essential when it’s pitch black outside. Yes you’re probably running on the pavement and there is street light but by making yourself visible you’re doing yourself and everyone around you a favour. When you run across a road, or run towards a pedestrian, it’s essential to be seen to avoid any nasty collisions or accidents.

The Kalenji Ekiden jacket is a great lightweight high-vis jacket that can definitely help with this. It’s not too thick to be overbearing, heavy or too warm, but it will protect you from the wind and rain while making yourself visible to those around you.

For most of the year I’ll stick with wearing shorts as my legs never get that cold. But when it does get really bitter then I’ll switch to either a pair of capris or long length leggings. There’s nothing worse than numb legs!!

The Kalenji Ekiden running tights are inexpensive (£9.99!) and perfect for those really cold days when you just can’t face bearing your legs.

But the one thing I cannot be without are gloves during the winter. The rest of me might be sweating and seriously hot, but my hands never warm up. I wear gloves pretty much November onwards.

The Kalenji Retro-Reflective gloves are great because not only will they keep your hands warm but they’ll also give a bit more high-vis to your hopefully already high-vis’ed up outfit ;-)And in terms of running accessories, I’m a huge fan of wearing lights. Either a head torch (though I do find this annoying as they always tend to bob about on my head) or by attaching some sort of LED to my clothing.

The Kalenji Run Light is a handy way to make yourself super visible. You just put it over your top layer and you’re good to go. It provides visibility up to 20m ahead of you and it comesw wth a rechargeable battery (though it does last 5 hours). What I really like is that it has rear flashing lights as well, so you’re fully covered.

So basically my key points are:

  • Be seen, either using high-vis clothing or lights (ideally both)
  • Avoid wearing thick layers; you want to be cold when you begin because you will warm up
  • Look for material that is wicking and will protect you from the rain and wind, like a light-weight jacket
  • Wear gloves

How do you stay warm during winter running?

What are your top running accessories?

How do you stay visible running/exercising the dark?

**Full Disclaimer: I was given a Decathlon voucher to spend in their shop in return for this article. All opinions are my own.**

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My laser eye surgery

I hate wearing glasses. I literally feel like the ugliest person alive when I wear them (which is why there are very few photos of me in my glasses anywhere). I can feel them on my face the entire time and I’m just really self-conscious. I wear contact lenses 90% of the time but it’s a faff and my eyes get dry by the end of the day. Swimming is a nightmare as I can’t really go underwater if I want to wear my contact lenses, but if I don’t wear lenses I can’t see. Laser eye surgery was something I always intended to do. My vision is (WAS!) -5.75 for both eyes; so quite a bit short-sighted.

I booked in for a free consultation with Optimax in Southampton to see if I was eligible for eye laser surgery and to see how much it would cost and what it would entail. After what was basically an eye test with an optician and then them checking my eye (very much like you would at the opticians – nothing different here at all), they said I was eligible. If you’ve had issues with your eyes in the past then you might not be able to have it done. I had an ulcer on my eye – away from the cornea – a few years ago and was still OK so it’s worth checking. Then you’re scheduled in to see the actual eye surgeon who’ll do a more in depth eye check. But again, nothing crazy or painful. Just something very similar to eye and contact lenses appointments. The worst part was a puff of air being blown into each eye.

My surgeon was very thorough and gave me peace of mind. He went through the procedure and seemed very competent (obviously). I was offered LASIK surgery which is the preferable treatment as it only takes 24-48 hours recovery time, unlike LASEK which is a week of recovery.

He told me I wouldn’t be able to wear make-up a week after the surgery (I don’t anyway so no issues there), no exercise that would cause sweat to go into my eyes for a week (but I clarified I could still do weight lifting at the gym as I don’t sweat much at all) and no washing your hair for the week – basically no water is to get into your eyes. I pondered over the washing hair issue… I have goggles or I’m going to get my mum to help me. I haven’t worked this out yet. Or hello dry shampoo.

After a few weeks of that process it was time for the actual surgery. I thought my eye surgery was Friday afternoon. My lovely manager said I could work from home and not worry about taking the day off as it was so late in the afternoon – plus it wasn’t that far from where I live. My dad had taken the day off and he was going to pick me up and drive me there as I wouldn’t be able to drive home. The clinic’s only about 15 minutes away so it was really easy. However, I once again failed at being a functioning adult and got the date wrong. I turned up and they were like, “errr it’s tomorrow?”. Whoops. So we had to turn around and go back home, despite having paid a fair fortune on parking. Oh dear. Luckily my dad saw the funny side!

So Saturday saw us there again 24 hours later. First up was having my eyes once again checked by the surgeon and then filling out some fun paperwork…

The whole process was quite lengthy. I was scheduled for 4pm but didn’t leave until 6pm. This is not necessarily because the procedure takes that long but because there are a number of people having it done on the same day and it’s kind of like a conveyor belt of people coming in and out. This is my only criticism of the process. My appointment would always be later than the scheduled time purely due to the number of people being seen all day. Any delays would then filter down and build-up (when I say a lot of people, I’d say around 4-5 other people at the same time as me during that afternoon, so not huge numbers really). And because they obviously do this week in and week out it becomes very rote and script-like to the employees who are helping and advising you…

However, I didn’t feel like I was rushed or that my questions weren’t listened to and I felt like I was in good hands. Also I was given the phone number of the surgeon after I first decided to go through with the treatment and was told I could ring day or night and discuss any concerns I had, how ever small. He was very nice.

What was also nice was seeing people go into the “laser room” and then 15 minutes later come out like “I’m healed!”. We could ask them how it went, what it was like and it was just so reassuring to see people go in and come out absolutely fine.

After the paperwork (and more waiting around – both my dad and me had brought our Kindles and iPads in preparation for the wait) it was time.

A nurse takes you into a room where you put a net hat on (like in fast food restaurants) to keep your hair out of the way, then you’re led into the laser room/operating theatre(?). It was a big clinical room with a bed in the middle and several machines. One of the nurses asked me for my glasses. She told me to say goodbye to them as I’d never need them again. It was quite a moment! Then I laid down on the bed. My head went into a firm foam block thing which kept it in place (like a mould basically).

The nurse told me to close my eyes and she began cleaning my eyes and the area around them. It kind of felt a bit spa-like at this point… Then she kept putting eye drops in my eyes until the surgeon came in. He basically talked to me the entire time, telling me either to open my eyes or keep my chin up and my breathing normal. I lost count of the times he said, “fantastic, young lady” or “everything is going fantastic”. It was highly reassuring as I was wide awake and didn’t really have a clue what was going on.

FYI, if you’re super squeamish this might not be for you…

One eye was done at a time. He first clamped my eyelid open using what looked like an eyelash curler thing (sort of). My eyes were numb at this point (from the eye drops?) but I could still feel the sensation of it happening. I couldn’t blink. He then put this circular suction thing over my eye and pushed it down. This basically clamped my eyeball so I couldn’t move my eye at all. This was uncomfortable and not particularly pleasant but not painful at all. He then did a few things to my eye that I could neither see nor feel really, but I was aware of. Again, just uncomfortable and no pain. I asked him afterwards and he said this was him “cutting a flap” in my cornea.

After this, my bed was gently wheeled under the laser machine. He reassured me that the laser machine was noisy and it was all fine. I was told to stare into a light. I couldn’t do much else to be honest – I could have moved my head but that was it. If I had have moved my head the machine would stop. A lot of flashing lights happened. This was the laser reshaping my cornea. He told me I had thirty seconds of this and basically counted it down for me and not to panic. It wasn’t at all painful but a quite scary uncomfortable thing. My heart was racing but I tried to breathe evenly and relax. In these sorts of situations you kind of want to close your eyes and relax that way but…! And there is a definite smell which was disconcerting. I can’t describe it…just pungent. I breathed through my mouth and it was fine.

Then the laser was turned off and the surgeon did some more ‘fiddling’ to my eye of which I couldn’t feel (replacing the flap basically) and then added lots of drops to my eyes. This was the worst part. I desperately wanted to blink. He then basically blinked for me though using what I can only describe as a mini windscreen wiper.

Then this was repeated for my other eye. I would say that the whole thing lasted about 4-5 minutes in total. It was really very quick. I was then led to a darkened room to sit in (my dad was allowed in) for about 10 minutes.

It was very strange. My vision was very blurry and my eyes very watery but as I blinked a bit I could see. OK not particularly well at this point but it was better than when I’d removed my glasses. The surgeon checked my eyes again and I was free to leave!

I had to take three different eye drops every two hours until I went to bed (antibiotics, steroids and tear drops). I must also wear sunglasses when outside to prevent dust going in my eyes.

This isn’t such a great look now the clocks have changed and it’s dark in an evening when I walk Alfie but hey ho!

That evening my eyes were very blurry but intermittently would clear and it would be a taste of what was to come. I could see better than I could before without my glasses but not as clear as when wearing lenses, but this would take time. To read my Kindle I had to make the text huge as I couldn’t read the text otherwise. My eyes felt fairly uncomfortable and I was blinking a lot – it was like I’d worn my contact lenses for too long and they weren’t sitting right. But it wasn’t painful or terribly uncomfortable. I used the fake tear drops throughout the evening and it helped.

Before going to bed I had to attach some eye guards to my face using the special medical tape. This would stop me from touching my eyes when I was asleep – a big no no.

I have to wear this to bed for a week and it’s fairly awkward to put on. My eyes didn’t itch but occasionally I got a regular itch under my eye on my top cheek and it was annoying I couldn’t scratch it.

The next morning I opened my eyes and the blurriness had reduced a huge amount. I could see! For the first time in I don’t know how long I could see the world when waking up. It was fantastic! For showering I wore my goggles to keep my eyes dry…

For the rest of the day my eyes were a bit misty and felt dry but nothing major. They were very bloodshot though.I went back to the clinic for my 24 hour check-up with the surgeon and he checked my eyes and then my vision. My vision was almost 20/20 and he said hopefully when they settled down I would be there. Honestly, I am so pleased. I go back in another 10 days, then I think a few months. The after-care is very comprehensive.

I fully recommend LASIK eye surgery. It’s the best thing I’ve done. Honestly, I’m over the moon. Yes it’s expensive: it was about £2,600, though I’m paying just about £217 a month interest free for 12 months. I was previously paying £40 a month for contact lenses and hundreds for glasses every so often so for me it’s worth it. Fully worth it.

If you have any questions at all, I’m happy to answer them!

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Glute exercises and Oppo ice cream review

So many running-related injuries can happen due to weak or inactive glutes. One of the main reasons I go to the gym is injury prevention. Glutes are so important to our running form that you really do need to get them going if you want to avoid things like runner’s knee, IT band issues, hamstring problems and even shin splints.

You can always spot the runners at the gyms because when they’re not on the treadmill (or looking sad and dejected doing cross training on a bike) they’re doing all manner of glute exercises, lunges and squats while looking like they’d rather be anywhere but at the gym. I was definitely one of those back in the day! Luckily I now quite enjoy the gym, and not just for injury prevention workouts, but for general strength training. Though I would indeed look rather miserable on a cardio machine!

Every week I’ll do one session (45mins – 1 hour long) doing glute-focused exercises. Here are some that I try to do regularly:

Lunges

A very simple exercise that I’m sure you’re familiar with. I either do it static, putting one foot forward, lowering my back knee, then bringing the leg back and switching legs. Or I do walking lunges. The important part is pushing through your glutes as you’re coming back up and not leaning too far forward. You can use a barbell, like below, or dumbbells held at your side.lunges

Single leg Deadlifts

This is a great exercise because it focuses on just one side of the body at a time so you can really focus on any imbalances or weaknesses. I know my left side is far weaker than my right so I can do a few more reps on it to try and increase its strength. It’s also a great exercise at improving your balance and strengthening your ankles.

Standing on one leg you lower the weight (or your hand) to the floor while sticking your other leg out behind you. As you come back up focus on using your glutes to stabilise and balance yourself, then raise your knee to really get that glute firing. Don’t go too quickly: the slower the better as you need more control that way. You don’t have to use a weight but I’ve been doing this exercise for a while now and needed more of a challenge.

Curtsy Squats

This is a good move to add a new angle into your usual squats. Put your right leg behind yourself then bend your knee to the ground, keeping your toes pointing forward. Again, you don’t need to use weights and similar to before, use your glutes to push your leg up to then swap your legs over.

Cable Pull Through

Like many glute exercises, this one is one not to catch anyone’s eye while performing it 😉 It’s a bit awkward but it’s really good. Though you do need a cable machine to do it, so it’s not one you can do at home. You stand in with your back in front of a cable machine with a rope as the handle, pull the cable through your legs and have your feet wide apart. Reach through your legs, bending at the hips with your knees slightly bent and then pull the cable through using the motion of getting your hips straight. It’s important that you’re not using your arms or shoulders to pull the cable. You want to feel this in your glutes – squeeze as you come to the standing position (where your hands are now rather embarrassingly around your nether region holding a bit of rope…#awkward).

Cable Kickbacks

Again, another one for the cable machine, but you can do this with ankle weights or even a resistance band attached to a solid frame. You want to attach an ankle strap/heel cup to your foot and then kick out from the machine. Do not go heavy on the weight as your targeting very small glute muscles here and adding heavier weight will likely cause your back to help out. You do not want this.

What I find that helps is actually feeling your glute with your hand while you do this workout so you can get that muscle-mind connection so the right muscles are being used. If it’s too hard, lower the weight or take the weight away completely.  You can kick backwards, to the side, to an angle… just go for different varieties to hit the glutes at different places. Ideally your rep ranges will be fairly high for these (15-20).

Oppo Ice Cream

Now moving on from exercise to… ice cream! Ice cream is such a crowd pleaser but it’s not a food you can really eat a huge amount of on a regular basis due to it’s high sugar and fat content. However, there is an ice cream out there that you can incorporate into your diet without accumulating big calories. And the best part? It’s not chemical ladened with artificial nasties.

Oppo Ice Cream isn’t full of sugar and fat. It uses ingredients like virgin coconut oil and stevia leaf instead. Stevia is naturally sweet but contains zero calories and zero sugars. Therefore the ice cream contains between 50-60% fewer calories and sugars than regular ice cream.

One of the founders also did a TED talk on how the ice cream came about which I found really interesting. I just love the whole ethos behind the company and what they’re trying to achieve.

There are three flavours Mint Choc Swirl, Salted Caramel and Madagascan Vanilla. I’ve tried the salted Caramel and mint. I like how within each of those flavours different natural ingredients have been used which also boost the nutrition of the product. In the vanilla, the baobab fruit is used which is rich in Vitamin C, potassium and anti-oxidants but also contributes to the creaminess and texture of the ice cream. For the salted caramel, the lacuma fruit is used which contains beta carotene, iron, zinc, vitamin B3, calcium and protein but also helps get the sweet flavour of the caramel. For the mint, spirulina is used to help get the green colouring. It’s 65% protein and a rich source of vitamin B, iron and manganese.

Thoughts? I love them. Both the mint and the salted caramel flavours rocked my world. I’m a big mint choc chip ice cream fan and I found it very minty and sweet, but not overly so. It was creamy and delicious and did feel naughty.

Though the salted caramel was my favourite. What I will say though is that you know you’re not eating Ben and Jerry’s. It’s not as thick and dense. It’s more airy and quick to melt. But it does hit the spot when you fancy a sweet treat but don’t want to be as indulgent as eating higher calorie ice creams.

My friends, Kate and Jamie, tried the mint with me and they enjoyed it too. But Jay did say that it wasn’t quite as good as the really naughty stuff but it was good for a mid-week treat without having a blow-out. It’s also a lot easier to eat an entire tub because it’s not as dense! But at around 400 calories, it’s not that bad (compared to the 1,000s in other tubs!). Thumbs up from me!

Do you ever buy lower calorie versions of treats?

What’s your favourite ice cream brand?

What exercises do you do to try and prevent injuries?

**Full Disclaimer: I was sent a voucher for one tub of ice cream in exchange for a review. I bought the other tub because I enjoyed it so much. All opinions are my own.**

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Good things making me happy

Apart from the dark mornings and evenings, the cold and rain, things are quite happy in my neck of the woods! It’s always nice to take stock of a few things that are making me a happy Anna.

The ‘C’ word: What is this madness? Christmas stuff already out in supermarkets. This photo was actually take two or three weeks ago as well.Christmas cakes, mince pies, stollen… yep. It’s October. That said, I love all things Christmas, especially food-related items) so I’m happy with this state of affairs. More mince pies in my life can only be a good thing.

Tesco encouraging kids to eat more fruit: They’re offering a free piece of fruit to children coming into the supermarket.

So they can chomp on something healthy as they walk round with their parents. What a great idea! Nice one, Tesco. We’ll let you off for your Christmas products 😉

New shoes: I bought some new shoes. They were really cheap as they’re of an older seasons but I really needed a pair of simple comfy shoes I could easily slip into and wear for quick errands or walking Alfie.

I tend to have a lot of trainers, pumps, boots and then my gym shoes (Vans & Converses – ideal because they have flat soles for squatting and deadlifting which help me be more “in tune” with the ground and lifting) but nothing that I’d be happy to get a bit mucky. I had a previous pair of Skechers and I wore them to the ground. These were only £25 which I thought was a steal.

Unusual gel flavours: A lovely friend of mine (a triathlon legend it must be said – his training cycles make mine look very amateur indeed) sent me some gels as a good luck present for my marathon (though with strict instruction NOT to use them during the marathon if I hadn’t tried them first).

Maple Bacon flavoured gels!! I know some (many?) of you will be thinking “that’s so gross” but I’m genuinely looking forward to trying them out. I quite like the GU gels (I still remember that salted caramel one I had once…so good. And the lemon flavoured one that tasted like a zesty pudding) so I expect good things 😉

Protein Porridge: I got a packet of this Mornflake Go! High Portein Porridge in my goodie bag from the Chester Marathon. Normally I will never use porridge packets because they always contain some form of sugar or flavouring and I can’t stand sweet porridge. For me the only sweetness I like is from the milk, so it’s very subtle.

But this was different. It’s a pack of oats containing soya protein isolate and (other than a stabiliser) that’s it. No sugar, no fruit, no seeds…just oats and protein. One packet though wouldn’t be enough for me for breakfast as it was around 130 calories. So I used two with almond milk and it tasted almost identical to my normal porridge.

Basically the same texture and it was really filling. I’m still regularly having scrambled eggs (with cheese, kale and olives – love it) for breakfast but I miss my porridge. The reason I swapped was because the porridge was quite low in protein but this is a great compromise. Though it is more expensive, so I’m looking into getting some unflavoured protein powder and playing around with that.

Woofins: These are adorable…even if I was disappointed when I first saw them as I thought “oooh cake” and then realised they’re actually for dogs.

Alfie isn’t a huge treat lover or chewer. For example, if I give him a dentist stick to chew on he puts it in his mouth then wanders around whimpering until I take it off him and cut it into four pieces for him (what a princess…). Although he will easily eat them normally when he’s around my parent’s dogs – but I think this is due to the fear that if he doesn’t they’ll eat it for him. Anyway, I digress, he wolfed down this mini cake – he loved it!

New car: OK it’s pretty much identical to my old car, just new.

I love the Fiat 500 and wanted to stay with them. Unfortunately I did want a different colour (I quite like the mint) but they didn’t have it in stock for when I wanted it so I had red again. As someone who is rubbish with adulting, having a brand new car with no MOT or service to worry about for a while is a huge weight off my mind (especially as I was late with my last service by about 10,000 miles as I got confused <– story of my life).

But things making me nervous: A 10k obstacle course race (Chepstow Stampede) with my friends, Kate and Jamie, that’s happening Saturday. I did that obstacle course in Spain but I don’t think it can quite compare to a muddy obstacle course race in Britain during a rather wet autumn. I’m stressing a bit with what to wear as I don’t really have anything I’d happy to never see again if it got ruined… and I’m scared about being really cold and wet. But other than that, it should be a laugh. We’ll see…

Have you ever done an obstacle course race?

What kind of car do you have?

What non-workout shoes do you normally wear?

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Milestone Pod Review

I love stats. I’m all about facts and figures, graphs and tables and #allthedata. It’s one of the fun parts about running: wearing my Garmin and then downloading the run when I’m finished and seeing all the figures.

Yes it’s nice to be disconnected once in a while and have a “naked” run without any gadgets or tracking system…buuuuut that’s a rarity for me. I don’t feel chained to my Garmin or anything as ridiculous as that and if I forgot my watch I wouldn’t not run, but personally I much prefer to track how it went, even if I don’t look at my watch while I’m running.

So when I got the opportunity to review the Milestone Pod I was very excited. It’s a new little gadget and not actually available just yet in the UK (it is in the States, *sighs* they always get the good stuff over there…) but it will be soon.

What is it? Basically it’s a very small, well, pod that you attach to one of your trainers and it records certain data from your run, which you can then upload to an app on your phone.

It tracks the mileage that your trainers do, doesn’t require a GPS so can work indoors as well as outdoors and (and this is what excited me the most) records gait and performance metrics.

So you view your pace, cadence, foot strike, ground contact, stride length, etc.

I mean, seriously how cool is that?? It definitely provides an interesting insight into your run. My running form is something I’m always looking to improve so this gives me some good feedback and some pointers for things I need to work. I take the heel strike thing with a pinch of salt though as I’m not bothered about heel striking but more about where my foot is actually landing (basically, whether I’m over-striding or whether my foot is landing beneath my body). But it’s still very cool!

The rate of impact is an interesting metric and the website provides some good information as to what this really means:

“...think of Silly Putty. If you slowly stretch out the Silly Putty, it will not break right away because it has time to deal with your pulling force (low rate of impact). If you quickly yank it apart, the Silly Putty will snap because it has no time to deal with your pulling force (high rate of impact).” Source

As an injury prone runner (I’m sure I say this in every post as if you’re not aware of the thousands of injuries I seem to acquire every year), this is really informative. It’s made me keen to work on some running drills (which my club do before speed training) and put the strength training I do in the gym into better action while I’m actually out running.

The pod is very easy to get working and set-up (even a numpty like me can do it!). It uses a battery similar to a watch so it doesn’t need charging and is easy to replace when it eventually does go flat. What I will say though is be very careful you’ve attached it carefully and properly to your shoe so it doesn’t fall off. This has happened to me during a run!

I’m all about the gadgets and stats as I said so if that’s something you’re interested in too then this is definitely for you. I love stuff like this and I love that there’s a whole app full of metrics and graphs that I can just peruse and geek out over. And, importantly, aim to consciously work on while I’m actually running. So keep your eyes peeled for it’s launch on Amazon in a few weeks!

Do you like getting lots of data from your runs/workouts?

How do you track your workouts?

Have you ever had your running gait analysed?

**Full Disclaimer: I was sent the Milestone Pod for free in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own honest ones.**