Ice Baths

My most pressing question as of late-how long do you linger in an ice bath? And secondly, how cold does it need to be?

I've never in my life taken an ice bath, that is, until last weekend when I crushed a 15 mile run. I did everything that day right, I took an ice bath immediately after finishing my run, ate something, then had a 1.5 hour massage. I was not sore at all after the longest run of my life. If I only had the time and money to keep those habits up!

But between getting the foster dog to adopt-a-pet and a hair appointment today, I definitely couldn't squeeze a inmassage. I did have time for the ice bath though. Well, ice bath is really a misnomer, more of a lukewarm bath. When only hot water comes out of the faucet, it is hard to cool it down enough to qualify for a true ice bath. Also, really cold water is uncomfortable to sit in!

I ran a bath of the coldest water I could get, then dumped a giant pitcher of I've in it. I sat in the water until I started shivering, about 10 minutes. It was miserable. I'm a bath girl; I could sit in a hot bath for hours. The cold bath is a horrible kind of torture though. We'll see tomorrow if I have any soreness and if it was worth it.

Miles logged: 12