Ice Baths (a.k.a. My New Wonder Drug)

While I work hard to stick to a training schedule and eat right, it’s pretty safe to say that I don’t do most of the other things necessary to keep myself healthy and injury-free.  Excluding my attempts to get to a weekly yoga class, I hardly ever stretch.  I use the foam roller only when things get really bad.  And, until last Sunday (race report coming soon), I had never taken an ice bath post-race.  Was I ever missing out on one of the best recovery tricks!!

After the DC Tri, which I am calling a successful failure, I took a nice, long ice bath, followed by a cold shower.  Under normal conditions, I would probably run screaming from the cold, but anyone who raced last weekend knows Sunday was anything but normal conditions.  It was HOT!!! 

On Monday, I planned to stop by the DC Tri Club swim at Catholic University, but figured I’d kind of float around for a few hundred yards.  Remembering St. Anthony’s in April, I figured I’d be sore for at least a week.  Surprisingly, I not only made it through a  2,200 yard workout, but I felt great afterwards.  Yesterday brought even more success when I hardly felt tired during a 40 minute hill run. 

Could I really have avoided the post-race pain I’ve had in the past all of my friends are talking about and, if so, what can I do to replicate that experience?  All I can think of is that ice bath.  I’ll be trying it again in 2 weeks after the Philadelphia Women’s Triathlon.  Hopefully, the hotel won’t find it too strange when I’m carting bags of us up to my room!

DC = Dehydration Central

Is it just me or has the weather in DC been a little erratic lately?  One day its freezing cold and I’m pulling out my winter tights to put over my bike shorts.  The next, it’s so hot the thought of moving at all dehydrates me.

For the past few weeks, I’ve had an internal debate with myself about whether St. A’s in Florida in April or DC Tri in June would be hotter or more humid.  The weather this week may point towards and answer.  Only 18 days before my next race, it’s too hot to train outside between the hours of 9 AM and 7 PM.  My lunchtime runs have moved inside and I’ve come up with every excuse under the sun not to take my bike outside.

Today, after contemplating an outdoor run for about 5 seconds, I settled on spinning and yoga after work.  Clearly, I was not the only one who didn’t want to exercise outside in this humidity.  By the time I arrived at the gym (only 5 minutes late), the spin class was full.  Instead, I hopped on a treadmill for what I thought would be an easy run.  Little did I know, despite being practically inseparable from my water bottle all day, I was too dehydrated to run.  It only took a few minutes before my entire body cramped up.  Instead of the great spin class or a run, I settled for waiting out the time until yoga on an exercise bike – not exactly an ideal training ride, but at least it’s cardio?

It’s funny to think that only a few short months ago my workouts were being snowed out and it’s sad to think it’s only June 2.  We haven’t even begun to see real heat and humidity here.  Looks like I’ll be double-fisting the water for a while.