On Tuesday of last week, when the high temperature reached a balmy 22 degrees, Craig Weinaug rode his bicycle to work.

It’s a 7.5-mile round trip from his front step to the Douglas County Courthouse, where he works as county administrator. But he rarely takes a direct route. He usually goes an extra 6 miles or so for good measure.

Sure, he could hop on a stationary bike at a gym. But what fun would that be?

“That would be rational,” the 53-year-old Weinaug says. “You’re talking to a guy with a true midlife crisis, who’s trying to fight off his mortality.”

While many bikers and joggers flock to the warm gym this time of the year, Weinaug and others are determined to stay with their outdoor exercise regimen.

The key, they say, is wearing the proper clothes.

“Pretty much everything is based on wearing enough to keep warm and keeping the moisture off you when you’re sweating,” says Wes O’Neal, outdoor shop manager at Sunflower Outdoor & Bike Shop, 802 Mass.

Keeping dry

Turns out mom was right: Wearing layers is best when it comes to keeping warm.

County Administrator Craig Weinaug suits up in warm weather biking attire before leaving work Tuesday at the Douglas County Courthouse. Weinaug says that he usually bikes to and from work year-round.

Weinaug relies on layers to protect nearly every part of his body when he rides in weather around freezing or lower.

Many of the clothes are made of polypropylene, a material that “wicks” sweat off the skin to keep a biker or runner dry – and warmer. Cotton T-shirts and sweatshirts might be warm, but they don’t sop up the sweat.

He tends to be covered head to toe with layers of polypropylene.

“When I’m walking out the door, I have to walk out quickly or I’m hot,” Weinaug says. “When I’m on the road, if I’m going 15 miles an hour into a 10-mile-an-hour wind and it’s 15 degrees, my face is obviously cold, but nothing else on me is cold.”

Running warm

Dee Boeck follows similar wardrobe selection when she’s running during freezing weather.

Boeck, 56, typically runs six miles twice a week and 10 or 11 miles once a week. Only ice keeps her inside.

“I love running outdoors,” Boeck says, “and I hate running indoors. I’ve run on a treadmill extremely seldom, and if I did ever it might have been that I was in a strange city at night somewhere and didn’t feel safe running outdoors.”

Boeck, who works for the attorney general’s office in Topeka, typically wears shorts unless it’s under 40 degrees outdoors, when she breaks out the full-length tights.

Lindy Eakin, another cold-weather runner, says he usually wears a couple of layers of polypropylene shirts, running gloves and a baseball-style running cap. He typically wears shorts-length running tights but will wear long running pants on the coldest of days.

Even in the cold, Eakin finds his body getting hot on his usual 6-mile runs.

“I sweat a lot,” he says. “A day like today (Wednesday, when the high was 12) I end up with a lot of ice on my beard.”

Purchasing all the layers of clothes can be pricey. A good running shirt can be $30 or more, so buying a week’s worth of running clothes could be expensive. But Eakin, a vice provost at Kansas University, notes that other than good shoes and clothes, running doesn’t cost a penny.

Ease into it

O’Neal, the Sunflower Outdoor & Bike Shop manager, says athletes must determine for themselves exactly how many layers – and how thick of layers – they need to keep warm for their workouts.

“I tend to err on the side of being warmer,” he says, “because you can vent places (by unzipping zippers) to get a little more circulation or ventilation.”

Eakin suggests running with a buddy during the winter months, since being stranded somewhere with an injury could be more perilous than during the summer months.

Exercising outdoors through the winter does take some advanced planning, Eakin says. If you’re not in great shape, he doesn’t recommend just jumping outside for a run in sub-freezing temperatures.

“I wouldn’t start a program in this type of weather,” he says. “But if you stay in shape you can keep running through this kind of weather.”