Ice Baths for Dummies

Since I was paced a half marathon and then tacked on 3 extra miles this past Sunday, I thought to myself, perhaps it's time to suck it up and take an ice bath.   My standing joke with my training buddies has been "the closest I will ever get to an ice bath is if I fall in a snow bank during winter training."

Hahaha!  That's not a bath mommy!

I told my friends post-race that I intended to try an ice bath and they were full of lots of very helpful advice.

• Start the bath water slightly warmer than ice cold, so that it's not such a shock to the system.  Then have your husband dump in the ice once you are sitting in it.
• Start small.  As in - use a small bag of ice or whatever ice is in the icemaker in the freezer
• Go in fully clothed.
• Wear something warm on top - a sweatshirt or something.
• Only fill the tub to just over your legs, or waist height.
• Bring your kindle.
• Bring a hot drink.

Despite all this helpful advice, I still managed to screw it up.  HA!  I took the start-the-bath-water-slightly-warmer-than-ice-cold advice a bit too far.  The bath water was more not-warm than it was cold.  The ice from the bag of ice melted so quickly...

It's melting...it's melting!

...that I made my husband go down to the ice-maker and get all that ice to add to the bath too.  And yes, I made him take another ice bath picture after the new ice was added.  I'm special that way.

Homemade ice is the best!

Mistake #2.  I did not account for the size of my tub when making ice purchasing decisions.  When I got home, Avery was napping, so using the smaller second bathroom tub was not really a good idea.  (It shares a wall with Avery's room.)   My master bathroom tub is big enough for probably me and all my training buddies to take an ice bath together. (That would be a whole DIFFERENT kind of blog).  Nonetheless, when I bought my ice, I stuck with the smaller ice bag based on the sound advice I was given of starting small.

The two mistakes together (starting temperature and quantity of ice), made for an ice bath that was cold when the ice was put in...and only sort of cold afterwards.

I didn't do the hot beverage, and didn't need to because of my earlier mistakes.  I did do the warm top - and that advice was the BEST ever!  And, not coincidentally, the one that I didn't screw up.  My clearance rack REI hoodie worked fabulously.

I also used a kitchen timer to make sure I stayed in for the right amount of time.  Even though my "ice" bath wasn't super cold, I stayed in for the full 15 minutes, I figured it wouldn't hurt.  And yes, having my kindle helped pass the time.

What what I do differently next time?

• Keep in mind the size of my tub!  Buy 2 of the LARGE bags of ice.

That's it actually.  I would buy a lot more ice, so that I could still start with the tub water at a not-warm, but not freezing temperature.  I liked that, it wasn't bad getting into the tub to start with.  And, I actually liked it when the ice was added to that, the cold felt good.  My theory is that the ice melting so quickly wouldn't be an issue with a higher quantity of ice.  Or maybe I'm just deluding myself?

Apparently - I'm treating ice baths like one of my chemistry experiments...

I do miss these days!

I promise, I did not pull out a lab notebook and take notes as to volume of bath water, temperature and quantity of ice...but now I am tempted to measure the temp of the water.  What ice bath temperature is ideal?  Oops.  My nerd is showing!

Somebody else will laugh at this - I just know it.

Have you ever taken an ice bath?

Any advice to add to or change from what I was given or did?

Are you like me in that I only change one variable at a time?  HA!