My Winter Running Essentials: Health

This is part 3 of 3 on my list of winter running essentials. Part one on clothing can be found here and part two on gear here. 

Health – It seems that the cold temperatures of winter running and having to run through snow takes a much harsher toll on your body than just normal spring/summer/fall running.  Because of that, I’ve found that I need to do a better job of taking care of my body.  I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t been the best at this in this season.  Already I’ve gotten two colds that have taken me out of a few weeks of running.

The most important thing to keep my body healthy and active is sleep.  When I’ve gotten sick, it’s directly because I wasn’t getting enough sleep.  I wouldn’t sleep well one night and then I wouldn’t remember to go to bed early the next… and then it would spiral downward from there.  My goal is to always get a solid eight hours of sleep.  For me, I just don’t function well on less than that.  However, as I mentioned that winter running seems to tax the body more greatly, extra sleep probably isn’t a bad idea.  Luckily it’s easy to stay in bed with soft flannel sheets like the wife and I have on ours.

Besides sleep, I also seem to need to be diligent to keep drinking down lots of liquids.  Besides drinking water throughout the day, two liquids seem to do the trick for my body – orange juice and tea.  With the orange juice it’s really just the vitamin C, so any fruit (or even some vegetables) would do.  It’s just so easy to down a glass of OJ though in the morning with breakfast.  It’s also so much more concentrated with vitamin C than anything else.  Switching to tea… well if you know me or if you have ever read my other blog, you know I like tea.  Again, like the OJ it’s not specifically anything with tea per se (although some teas do have their extra benefits with antioxidants, etc), so if you’re a coffee drinker or are a winter hot chocolate drinker, go with that.  It’s really just that it’s a hot beverage.  I often have some tea after I’ve gotten back inside from a winter run.  A nice warm beverage is very nice to just simply warm up the insides, but it also seems to soothe my throat after breathing in all the dry cold air.  Additionally, a hot beverage also seems to keep any phlegm or mucus in my throat or chest at bay.  We all know that winter often becomes a constant battle against that!

And there you have it, my list of winter running essentials.  Hopefully these posts help somebody who reads this or at least gives some ideas.  For me it was just a random idea (that I probably got while running) that I felt like transferring from my head to words.

For when the view out your front door looks like this – hopefully I’ve said something to make you want to adventure out for a run.

Happy New Year!!  Best wishes for making and completing some running themed resolutions for 2013!