Winter is coming

Here we are. The northerly gales are back. That sounds pretty awful in Ultimate terms.

In Northern Europe and in most of North America people play indoor during the winter because it is just too cold to play outdoor. In the UK, on the other hand, it gets cold, windy, and wet to the point of making playing outdoor painful, but possible. You just have to be prepared and accept mud as a legitimate playing surface. Winter Ultimate is less painful and more possible using the right thermal clothing, waterproff gear, and footwear.

Thermal clothing

Someone once told me: "There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing". Here are my suggestions:

First of all, forget cotton! Cotton clothes are useful for doing sport only for 15 minutes. After that, they will get soaked with sweat and rain. Dump clothing will make you very cold, very quickly. It’s just physics: water conducts heat much better (25-30 better) than air, so dump clothes absorb heat from your body very quickly rather than insulating it from the cold.

What you want is some kind of clothing that stays dry in contact with the skin (you may have heard this already in some tampon commercial) so that the air trapped inside the garment acts as an insulating layer.

Solution: Wear technical clothes. They come in a variety of brand names, such as “dri-fit”, “coolmax”, etc. These garments hare usually made 100% of polyester. The stretchy ones usually are made of “lycra”, “spandex”, or some other elastic material.They are great for 2 reasons. First, they hardly absorb any water, they come out of the washing machine already nearly dry. Second, they are usually made of wicking material that draws water from the inside to the outside of the garment, hence: Never wear them inside-out.

I can recommend:

- Lite Sports top and leggings. They are very stretchy and they cost less than Nike and other brand names.

- EDZ under-layer. All products are on their website. When it’s really cold, I use the base layer top, leggings, neck warmer, and hat. They can all be bought at these online shops:

- http://www.thermalshop.co.uk/

- http://www.mandp.co.uk/

- Decathlon has its own range of thermal wear, which is of decent value. You can have alook at their website.

I have worn this stuff last year and I was always toasty warm, regardless of weather. Some people, incomprehensibly, dress only to the point where they can bear the cold, rather than to the point where they are comfortable. I am definitely in the second group.

Your body burns calories just to maintain its core temperature. If you don’t dress well, your body will be burning a large amount of calories just to keep warm. I’d rather use those calories to play D.

It's better to wear this type of underlayers skin tight. Often it is better to buy them one size smaller than you usually wear.

Water-proof gear

The main thing that characterises winter Ultimate in London is rain. There is no way out. You will play under the rain at some point.

- Bin liners. The easiest way to keep dry bags, shoes, food etc. on the sideline is to put everything inside bin liners. You can buy bin liners at any supermarket. The only problem is that, when the entire team does this, the sideline becomes full of indistinguishable black bags and it will be impossible to find your own.

- Waterproof jacket and (over-)trousers (pants for the Americans). It is a good idea to keep dry and warm between games, and sometime between points. This is easily done with water proof jacket and trousers. I have bought mine for around £10 each; both packable.

- Waterproof poncho. An alternative to jacket and trousers. You can put it on and take it off easily and when you are not wearing it you can use it as a blanket to cover bags and other gear.

- Rucksac liner: Keeps your rucksac dry.

Any half-decent outdoor shop should sell all the above. I have bought most of my stuff from Mountain Warehouse in Covent Garden. They have also a website.