Running in the winter can be a challenge because you need need to stay warm, dry and visible. While your head is the place where you lose the most heat, your torso is where all of the vital functions of your body happen and so it is one of the most important parts of your body to get right when dressing for the cold before a run.

It’s very easy to remember how to keep your torso warm: it is all about layering up.

On the outside you want to have some kind of a windbreaker, whether it’s a full zip or some kind of a half zip that only goes down to your chest. The nice thing about the half zip’s and the full zip shirts are that you can regulate heat really well.

On the colder days when you first get out running and you haven’t warmed up yet, you can zip up all the way to protect your neck, not so much for this jacket, but you get it over your face or sometimes your nose as you are running and once you warm up you can let some of the heat out just by unzipping it.

On a warmer day that is still a bit cool, you may want to consider a vest instead of a jacket, which will protect your torso while keeping your arms from sweating.

Underneath of that you are going to want to wear at least one if not two shirts. I like to have a long sleeve and then a short sleeve underneath. That provides extra protection from the wind and also allows a warmed pocket of air to collect between each layer.

Another option that you might want to consider are arm sleeves, which are perfect for cool days where you might be a bit chilly early in a run with just a t-shirt but you know that once you warm up (or once the sun gets a bit higher) you will be too warm for long sleeves. Arm sleeves are also good for protecting you from the sun’s ultraviolet.

As you warm up, you can strip layers off, push up your sleeves, or unzip your jacket in order to keep your body temperature regulated. That way you don’t overheat, and if you hit a particularly windy stretch or the conditions change you have clothing you can then put back on.

I recommend against wearing cotton, and wearing more technical fabrics instead. The reason for that is because as you are running and you sweat, a cotton shirt will collect the moisture and get wet. The water then pools up on that spot, and the shirt is going to get heavy and may begin to freeze, which will lower your core temperature.

If you are wearing a technical shirt such as polypropelene and you get water on it, the water is just going to wick from your skin out and then once it gets on to the shirt it’s going to spread out along the fabric. This way it is not all concentrated on one spot, you will not get as cold, and the moisture will be more likely to evaporate away from your clothing.

In fact, if you have a good running shirt or jacket then the moisture will bead up and it will just run right off of the shirt, keeping both you and your clothing dry.