Cold baths? That ties in nicely with today's question. It would definitely ruin my social life!

__________________
Give me the hills!

Hehehe -

The cold water basically shunts blood flow to the legs while submerged (the blood vessels constrict). When you get out of the tub, the blood rushes back (the blood vessels dilate) bringing in oxygen to the muscles and ligaments; meanwhile waste byproduct from hard workouts (lactic acid) gets flushed out.

Honest it helps and is used often. I'm sure it wont spoil your social life Runningfox!

Train Hard. Train Smart.
www.realrunners.co.uk

How long do you have to stay in the cold bath?

[involuntary shiver]

The words, LONG and COLD BATH have no place in the same sentence.......:eek:

Granty's right Dave.
There are good running days and bad ones. Last Sunday just happened to be a really bad one for me!

I think I have overtrained having not had my normal summer break and am therefore now starting to pay for it. In your case I suspect you just did too much in too short a time.

I plan to do a 5 miler steady tonight but if I don't feel right I'll abort. My next session is a speed session on Thursday and again if I'm not right I'll stop. Like you my next race, a 1/2m, is on Sunday so overall I aim to reduce my mileage this week and not do much else in terms of gymwork in the hope I feel refreshed for Sunday. I suspect if you do the same this week you'll be ok Sunday too.

The rule of the thumb is at least 5 minutes, but 20 minutes maximum (cant quite imagine anyoe staying in there for that long!), run the bath so that your legs are submerged - good luck, let us know how you get on!

Turning Joggers INTO Runners. Real Runners.
www.realrunners.co.uk

Plums and raisins spring to mind!

Real Runners, how soon after a session should you get into a cold bath? I often train at lunch times, and there is no bath at work. Can this be done at home, five or six hours after my run?

Hi Boab

yes - it will help repair mirco tears and also help blood flow, 5 - 6 hours later is better than not doing it at all. I would therefore encourage you to get into a cold bath after a hard lunch time run, 5 - 6 hours after the run.

Good luck - the first couple of minutes is pretty tough but then it gets easier, I would just recommend trying to keep still in the cold bath, no movements! Let us know if it had any effect. Cheers

__________________
Turning Joggers INTO Runners. Real Runners Ltd
Real People, Real Fitness, Real Runners.
www.realrunners.co.uk

You know - although the reasoning behind these cold baths sounds good, I just can't help thinking you're having us all on! We're about to breed a generation of runners that take cold baths after runs. Wow.

Having said that, I do enjoy my cold shower after a run.

Karen, I believe a lot of top athletes use ice baths to aid recovery.

Real Runners, did what you said. I was running a double session yesterday, 6.5 miles in the morning, and 7 late afternoon, then came home and jumped into a tap cold bath. My feet really hurt when they were in too long so I had to pop my toes and the front of my feet out the water, cold water aint good on the man bits either, but I presevered for 13 minutes.
The verdict: went out for a 4 mile easy run this morning, and to be honest my legs felt heavy like they normally do after a double, not fresh like I thought they may have been.
Any reason for this?

Hi Boab

Pleased you attempted the cold bath - I would suggest staying in the cold bath for slightly shorter time, 8 minutes max - however some people choose to stay in their longer. I would also encourage you to submerge your legs but not your feet.

Good mileage yesterday - I take it you are training for the marathon?

As for not feeling fresh - you covered 13.5 miles, its unlikely anyone will be feeling fresh after that kind of mileage? How did you run it? At what mileage? How many minutes slower per mile than half marathon race pace? What did you do the day before and the day before that? A lot of factors will effect how fresh one feels? It could be a bit of DOMS - delayed onset of muscle soreness.

Continue to have the cold baths - the body may also take some time to acclimatise to it. Good luck Boab and really do try to continue with it!

__________________
Turning Joggers INTO Runners. Real Runners Ltd
Real People, Real Fitness, Real Runners.
www.realrunners.co.uk

Well, OK, I'm going to try it out real soon.

I've a really rotten cold at the moment so haven't run all week though. Feel like something that dog dragged in for dinner ...

RR, cheers for the advice, I will persevere with it, as I have heard on numerous occasions that it works, it just didn't for me yesterday.

The day before was a 3k pace track session - 3X5X300m all between 51-55 seconds and about 4 miles warm up and cool down. Didn't feel to jaded after that, but I suppose the accumulation of session could play a part.

No, not training for the marathon, doing some hard winter training to hopefully improve my 5k, 10K and half mara times next year.

The runs yesterday were about 7 -7:30 m/m, roughly 90-120 seconds below half marathon pace, so fairly easy runs and is the pace I normally run recovery runs at.

Boab - I imagine its just doms - delayed onset of muscle soreness, the 3k sesh that you did would have obviously created a lot of lactic acid (providing you did run the efforts @ 3km efforts).

The easy runs are spot on 90 - 120 seconds slower than HM pace. I would encourage you stick to the higher end for the next couple of days, running near 7.30 miling. Continue with the cold baths. Also I would recommend some lactic strides @ the end of a 3km session - just to realign the muscle fibres.

Good luck Boab.

__________________
Turning Joggers INTO Runners. Real Runners Ltd
Real People, Real Fitness, Real Runners.
www.realrunners.co.uk