Revisiting the Dreaded Ice Bath, and Recovery

My knees have been hurting. And getting worse. At first I was like, "Eh, its just a phase." Then I squatted down to lift a pot out of my bottom cupboard. I couldn't get back up without bracing myself with my arms.

Uh oh....

Walking down stairs hurts.

Uh oh....

After my 15+ mile run on Tuesday, I suddenly got a craving mid run to take an ice bath. Its like my body just KNEW it NEEDED an ice bath. Its kind of like the first time I tried an Olive and almost puked my guts up. Then two years later I suddenly NEEDED to eat an olive. Now Olives are one of my favorite foods.

Seems like Ice Baths are now my new favorite recovery tool?

So did this Ice Bath work? YEP! It didn't so much cure the sore muscles but rather soothed my achy knees. My knees have actually felt better after this ice bath than they have in about three weeks.

I wrote a post on Recovery over a year ago. It was all experimentation back then, but unfortunately I didn't have a "control" to compare my results to. Has anyone figured out how to clone oneself yet?

Here are my recovery steps from a hard workout.
#1 EAT
- it doesn't matter, just get food into you! Protein, carbs, fat. Make it taste good! But really, more carbs. Gotta replace those Glycogen stores! I usually make a chocolate whey protein shake with 40 grams of chocolate whey, 2 cups of milk, and a banana and blend! So yummy! This way I am getting sugars, proteins, and fats all in one.

#2 Stretch
- you know what to do!

#3 Foam Roll
- Gonna Quote Matty-O here: "There is no crying in foam rolling!"

#4 Ice Bath
- here are my tips.
- wear clothes - this helps sooooo much! Your legs will still be frozen by the end of the bath. You just won't get that deep chill. I wear a long sleave top with my under running wear.
- get into an empty tub - you are wearing your clothes, now hop in and THEN fill up the tub with cold water. NOW add the ice. This basically takes any sort of shock out of the equation. You don't throw a frog into a boiling pot of water, right?
- drink something warm! Thank you Lauren @ Train, Tri Tri Again for the recommendation! If the best way to cool your body is by ingesting cold liquids, heating your body is best by ingesting hot liquids.

For the 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000th time. I did NOT pee in the tub! ;) Its the ice cube shadows! haha!

#5 Eat some more, or, get your legs warmed back up
- my legs are literally iced when done. So I let them warm up

#6 stretch again
- because my legs have gotten stiff from the ice bath, I restretch them out

#7 shower
- ok, now you can get unsmelly!

#8 get horizontal
- pretty simple. Rest those legs!

The above steps have basically saved my legs this week. I am doing another long run on Sunday, possibly a 19 miler (after 112 miles of the Lake Placid course on Saturday). May only do 13. Regardless, I am going to need another dose of cold on the knees! Fortunately Mirror Lake's water temp is still south of 50 degrees. Full body ice bath anyone?

Of course, I have found the Brownie Sunday Recovery Method to work just as well ;)