Cold Weather Exercise

A rough & totally unscientific guide to chilly temps

I don’t know about you, but there’s a limit to how hard I can push myself when the temperature drops below freezing. While I can run, ski, and even bike at a moderate pace all day long at sub-freezing temps, I really don’t enjoy the hacking cough I develop from doing sprints or heart-pounding intervals when it’s that cold.

It’s a condition that afflicts even the hardest-working athletes, cross-country skiers, who develop a skier’s hack from the cold. What’s happening is that the super-dry air causes the airways to narrow, much like exercise-induced asthma. The common solution to this is to wear a balaclava or scarf over your mouth and nose to trap moisture from your exhale and recycle it down your throat with your inhales. That’s nice, but when I’m going full-speed, having to suck air through fabric is akin to running 87 octane gas when my engine needs 93 octane. It slows me down, and I usually go into some sort of wheezing discomfort from the lack of air or worse I feel like I’m suffocating.

So here’s my anecdotal guide to temperature/intensity for cold weather workouts. Your experience will be different. I guarantee it:

• Above 30 degrees F: Bring it on; anything’s game.
• 20-30 degrees F: Can go moderately hard, say 80% of my threshold (My top-end pace that I average over 8-10 minutes)
• 0-20 degrees F: A brisk walk or mellow ski run/snowshoe, feels nice. Cycling is a no-go for me. And if I played pond hockey, I'd sit out.
• Below 0 degrees F: Hey, that membership to 24Hr Fitness looks darn good right now.