I'm not normally a big fan of rules, but they're really more like suggestions.  If this guy has actually only been running 8 months, I'm guessing he found a running club and got some good advice.  Either that, or he's a pretty sharp guy.

A Runner's Rules

It hasn't actually been particularly cold of late, so it's hard to imagine frost nip on your legs unless you were running very early or it was pretty windy.

I generally wear as little gear as possible, if you have too much gear on you can wind up sweating too much and feel colder than you would with less.  I haven't worn anything but shorts for the past couple of weeks, but I don't generally run in the early morning hours.  If it is too cold for just shorts, I go with very lighweight tights under shorts, or loose fitting running pants over shorts.  As a rule of thumb, I want to feel slightly uncomfortably cold at the start because I know I'll be warming up once I get going.

I usually wear a form-fitting base layer tech shirt, and a loose fitting tech shirt over it.  Would have to be really cold or windy to go with more than that.

Ice is the worst, you have to be really careful because you can be on the ground in about a tenth of a second.  Sometimes catching yourself before falling is even worse, it's easy to pull muscles trying to keep from falling.  I don't like wearing spikes or Yak Trax though, so I just try to run routes past businesses (they tend to be afraid of people falling and salt and/or sand)

Be careful and keep at it, Groundhog Day is only a couple weeks away!