Be seen, and make it easy to be seen
Winter kit sorts itself into two jobs: staying warm enough to start and visible enough to continue. For visibility, reflective detail on your moving parts does far more than a static strip across your back — ankles, wrists and the side of a jacket catch headlights because they move. A chest or head torch is less about seeing the pavement and more about announcing you to the cyclist coming the other way.
For warmth, dress for the kilometre you will be in ten minutes' time, not the doorstep. A thin long-sleeve base, a light wind layer, gloves and something over your ears is usually enough down to genuinely cold temperatures; you should feel slightly underdressed in the hall. Keep the whole outfit on one hook by the door so the decision is already made at six in the morning when your resolve is thin.
Protect the habit on the nights you cannot face it
Some evenings the weather, the dark and the week will win, and that is where most winters quietly end. Build in an explicit alternative so that a missed run is a swap, not a break: twenty minutes of stairs, a treadmill session, a strength circuit on the living-room floor, a brisk walk with a podcast. The point is continuity of identity — you are still someone who trains in winter.
