Using Ice Baths To Recover From Long Runs

Holly crap that hurts.

There is no question that running long distances does damage to your muscle tissue, it’s the damage that causes that issue to grow become stronger; or so I have been told.  There’s also no question that it can be very difficult to run the day after a long train, if not impossible.  Whether it’s lactic acid or swollen tissue are microscopic fairies of pain swimming through your leg meat; there is no arguing 15 plus miles can wreak havoc on your body.  But what do you do if you wanna get back out within a few days?

The second marathon I ran was with a very close friend, we trained together, shared nutritional tips, and training advice.  I don’t know which one of us came across this particular tip but when we heard it we figured ” what the hell, worth a try.”

The theory was that if you submerged the lower half of your body in a bathtub full of freezing ice water your muscles with contract fast enough to squeeze any built up lactic acid from your them, and work double by reducing swelling.

This is Texas and it’s very hot, even at 8:00 AM in the summer, so most of our training runs started sometimes at 4:30 in the morning.  So the night before one of our longer runs I decided to go buy 16 pounds of ice; 8 pounds each because I wasn’t about to share the same bathwater with any grown man.  I dumped 8 pounds of crushed ice into the tub followed by two or three pitchers full of ice from our freezer, added enough water to cover me to my waist, and got in.  I wore my shorts with the ridiculous theory it may keep my fellas a little warmer – it in fact did not and they vanished from the scene.  It hurt about as bad as you think plunging the lower half of your body into a freezing ice bath would but I managed to stick it out for about 10 minutes.

Being as how I’m a larger runner protecting my joints and legs is very important to me; however, I still question whether this practice is worth it.  It is something I’ve done numerous times since which should tell you, despite my complete disdain for this practice, it does work quite well.  The technical term for it is cryotherapy.  I refer to it as a sucksrealbad soak.  But it works quite well and it’s much better than dealing with several days of pain.