When I’d lived in Las Vegas for about a year, I had to have some kind of service professional help me with something at my house. It might have been sprinklers, I don’t recall exactly. What I do know is this person was in my garage and he asked me, “You used to live somewhere cold, huh?”
I was kind of surprised, “Uh… yeah. How did you know that?”
“You have 3 snow shovels over there.”
Oh… yeah, those things. And I’ll have you know that we used one of them one time in the 9 years we’ve lived in Las Vegas.
Did we really need to? No… it was more just because we could or the humor of the situation. But we still used a snow shovel!
The other day when my husband was watching football, I walked through the room as a Nike commercial was on screen and it instructed the viewer to “Choose Your Winter.”
Okay, I choose this winter.
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Most people wrongly assume Las Vegas is hot year round, but I do recognize that I have pretty nice winter weather for running. We get some pretty cold days, but the coldest temperature that I’ve run in here was in the teens and that was an anomaly. Frequently mornings in the “dead of winter” are in the 30’s and if I have the opportunity to run around 9 am instead of in the dark, I can usually run in the 40’s or even 50’s. So my winter gear needs aren’t as intense as most people.
One of my winter gear favorites is arm sleeves. (Take this as a recommendation for your fall/spring attire if you live somewhere with real extremes!) They’re easy to pull on with a regular shirt, and to pull off if you no longer need that layer. I got my first pair of arm sleeves in 2008 or something, they were a simple white pair by Asics and they felt kind of like a tightly woven sock. They were soft, they kept me warm and they washed up well.
But arm sleeves have gotten more and more high-tech over the years. I own a couple of pairs that are compression with reflective stripes down the side and have a little pocket on the upper arm. I got them for the reflective qualities, I still don’t see why I would want compression and the tiny pocket is worthless… it could maybe hold a quarter?
For my 2nd leg during my recent Ragnar Relay, I wore a pair of those arm sleeves and when I pulled them off upon conclusion, I found a small chafe spot on my arm from them. One of the seams somehow rubbed me wrong. (Running is amazing, somehow you can get a chafe wound in a spot where you can’t think of any possible way there was friction happening!) But that little spot is still on my arm, nearly a month later!
But while I was out running, I had received an email from Louva Gear, offering me a pair of their sleeves to test. And it felt like going back home to those very first sleeves I ever had! Except these new ones had thumbholes. (Thumbholes are so exciting… for some odd reason!)
(I realize, that picture kind of looks like I’m wearing a cast, huh? It’s hard to take a picture of yourself and frame in the sleeves!)
You can have people write messages on them for you if you are running a key race and want to carry that love with you. You could dye them yourself if you want them a different color. You can decorate them and treat them like a blank canvas. Or you can do like I do… and just wear them. To keep warm on slightly chilly mornings. They have plans to expand the color palette, but for now white is the option.
But you can’t beat the price… $12!
Now, if you’re really frugal you may say, “But Jill, you can make your own arm sleeves with a pair of socks, just cut off the toes.”
BAH! I’ve heard that trick and I don’t buy into it. All I can imagine is that they would be all baggy and falling down. I choose this kind of option, knowing something is put together and won’t fray apart all run.
My running staples for a Las Vegas winter are:
- capris
- long sleeve tech shirts
OR - arm sleeves pair with a short sleeve tech shirt
- gloves
Pretty simple, and I appreciate that. I’m not saying living in a real winter environment is a complete impossibility. But I do really appreciate what I’ve got right now!
Jill Will Run 
12 is really a great price. Definitely low enough to justify not cutting socks. (Yeah who actually does that?) I lol’d at that part. I mean sure maybe for warmth before a race? Anyway. They look great and you def have a nice “winter”!
I’ve always though it was bizarre too! Like I’m going to go to the store and purposely buy men’s tube socks or something to chop off? Pass!