Les Croupiers Running Club Forum

As we head towards the traditional icy months I'd like to ask everyone's advice on running in icy conditions.

The most obvious question would be, should you? Is the risk of injury too great? Should I look for a nice field to run around a dozen times instead?

I the answer is yes, is it a case of technique, equipment or a mixture of both?

With rumour of a hard winter to come, and I don't have any gym membership, I don't really want my mileage to suffer too much.

Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Mike.

That's a very timely question, Mike. We tend to get a thread about "How are you coping in the current spell of cold weather every year".
Of course, even though the weather is the same for everyone, we all see it differently.
At 58, I'm a lot more cautious than I used to be, and avoidance of risk of falling or injury are high on my list of priorities. For example, there have been several occasions in recent years where I have done circuits of Llandaff fields in the dark on a club night rather than run on icy pavements.
It's often a good idea to do a recce of local conditions and see what causes least risk. There were occasions last winter where altitude and proximity to the sea made running the roads much safer. Yes, being a Barry boy does have its advantages.
Where there's snow pretty much everywhere, I have been known to drive to an area which is well lit, and I can see, simply in order to run on grass. A half mile stress adjacent to Port Road in Barry is an area I've used several times.
Of course, you can simply hibernate and wait for it to thaw. Depends how much you need your daily fix, I guess.
But I'd rather lose a couple of days due to the weather, than a couple of weeks due to injury because I was too inpatient.