Ice Baths: A New Form of Torture

Picture yourself running, run-walking or walking for two and a half hours in the freezing cold. Then picture immersing the lower half of yourself in a tub full of ice cubes and cold water for 10-15 minutes (or just plain ice cold tap water, if you're a weenie like me), while wearing a sweatshirt on your upper half to keep warm. Doesn't sound very fun, does it? Supposedly, it helps with your recovery after a long run.

The last time I attempted anything remotely like this was after I finished my first marathon, at Walt Disney World in January 2010, and that was only lukewarm water. I just attempted it a few minutes ago with ice cold tap water. Interestingly (and fortunately), I didn't freeze my ass off. However, my upper leg muscles would not stop shivering and quivering like a bowl of flesh-colored Jell-O. It also helps if you set the timer on your watch for 10 minutes instead of 10 hours. Fortunately, I checked the clock on my bathroom wall before I got in!

Whether it helps with my recovery remains to be seen. I'll have to see how I feel when I wake up tomorrow morning. Right now, though,I think I'll go and sit on my radiator for a while.



(I can't believe they actually sell a greeting card featuring an ice bath on Amazon!)

A Lovely Stroll Along the West Side Highway

If you would like to make a donation to support my Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training fund raising efforts, please go to http://pages.teamintraining.org/nyc/wdw11/cmartzinek

Today, our training session consisted of a lovely stroll along the West Side Highway. For those of you who do not live in the New York City area, the West Side Highway runs along the Hudson River, and there's a very nice, scenic and most importantly, FLAT running and biking path that extends pretty much along the entire west side of Manhattan. It's a really great place to get out and go for a walk, run or run-walk. It is also right on the water, making it really cold out there on days like today, when the high temperature is 40 degrees or below. (NOT to be confused with 40 below - I think I'd kind of have to draw the line and say "NO WAY, José!" if that was the case!)

I went through this particular form of torture last winter season during training, so I had a pretty good idea of what I had to look forward to today. I started trying to get myself psyched into it around 7:00 PM last night. I made myself get my clothes, sports drinks, a change of warm clothes for afterwards, etc. ready, so that all I would need to do when the alarm went off at 5:30 AM would be to get dressed, wash my face, brush my teeth, throw some make up on my face (yes, I try to spare my team mates from seeing me without makeup), have some coffee and spend some quality time on facebook before I have to leave the house to catch the 7:20 AM bus to the Main Street Flushing subway station (more on that later). So, everything was all ready to rock-'n'-roll before "Judge Judy" time.

Fast-forward to when my alarm went off this morning. Now, any other morning, when I don't have to wake up at the butt-crack of dawn, I am up, semi-alert and half-caffeinated usually before 6:00 AM. For some reason, whenever I have to be up at that hour, I need to set both alarms on my dual-alarm clock, and hit the snooze button several times before I actually get out of bed. This morning was no exception. The only difference this morning was that I allowed myself to chant "I hate this part, I HATE this part!" about twenty times OUT LOUD before getting out of bed. I scared the crap out of my cats, Tigger and Gateway! They just looked at me and ran out of the bedroom at about 90 mph. For some reason, it worked. I got out of bed, put the coffee on, fed Tigger and Gateway (not necessarily in that order), and turned on my computer and my cell phone. Sometime after I shut my phone off for the night, I had received a message from one of my coaches in response to something else and part of it said:

"...for what it's worth, you are earning a hell of a lot of respect this season. Well deserved, too, I might add. Keep up the good work."

I quote that text message not to pat myself on the back, but to illustrate the difference between how I see my training efforts vs. how others see them. That, and to show how, whenever I need an extra shot in the arm to keep going, one magically seems to appear at just the right time. How could I possibly not show up for this morning's tort... I mean trainining session after that???

The NYC Mass-Transit Gods were with me again this morning. Not that he reads this or anything, but I have to give a huge shout-out to the driver of the 7:20 AM Q65 bus on Saturday mornings. The man is always on time. He's like clockwork (and yes, I've thanked him for it!) Ditto for the MTA #7 train crews for keeping those running amazingly well on Saturday mornings. I can honestly say that mass-transit issues are not a regular part of my Saturday mornings. Everything runs like clockwork on Saturdays.

So, I made it to Central Park on time, and with a bit of trepidation, took off the fleece vest I had been wearing under my jacket and left it with the rest of my warm clothes at bag watch. Did I mention it was COLD outside??? At any rate, it all worked out amazingly well. I had basically decided that my goal this morning was to show up, and that anything else was a bonus. I had planned on walking this morning instead of run-walking, so I had two walking buddies, one of which was my fellow blog-buddy, Joanne. Having walking buddies really helped all of us keep our minds off of how cold it was and how much further we had to go. Surprisingly, it wasn't as cold as I thought it would be, and didn't get that cold until we were on the way back and got near Chelsea Piers. I also surprised myself by run-walking a good portion of it, although my "run" was more like a slow jog today. I started run-walking it when I started feeling my hamstrings getting a bit tight, and it really helped. I'm still not sure what my goal is going to be in terms of run-walking for the Walt Disney World Marathon. Am I going to try to run-walk the entire thing, or just use it as a tool when I need it to keep me going? I may not know until that morning, and that's okay. I'll pack my Gymboss either way.

The end result was that we did it. Two and a half hours and 8.75 miles later, we were DONE!!! Now, I just have to decide if I want to attempt a 10K race tomorrow morning in Central Park, or be a total slug. Stay tuned...

I Survived My First Race as a Run-Walker, and Other Amazing Feats

I'm not quite sure how I managed to do it, but I survived my first race as a run-walker yesterday. I also, apparently, had a sex-change operation and moved in the process, based on the official results above. Not only was it my first race as a run-walker, it was also my very first race where my official pace was under 15 minutes/mile! Not bad for a 47 year old man from Colorado!

Now I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to manage that for an entire 26.2 mile marathon. (The run-walking, not the sex-change!) The running felt good, up to a point. I still feel like an elephant when I run, and I'm not sure why. I don't feel graceful at all! My legs feel like lead. I don't know if it's a physical thing, a mental thing after weighing over 300 pounds for 15+ years, or a combination of both. I'm still not sure that the running thing is for me. The one thing I do know, though, is that I feel a lot more flexible after a run-walk than I have after any of my long walks. I'm nowhere near as stiff afterwards, and I don't walk around looking like my mother before she had both of her hips replaced. Today, I'm a little stiff, but I'm guessing that's because between yesterday and Saturday, I put over 15 miles on my pedometer. I think I'm entitled to be a little stiff.

On another note entirely, I've made an interesting discovery the past few weeks about how some runners view race walkers. Twice in the past three weeks, I've had runners mention how they don't know how race walkers manage stay on their feet as long as we do. It's interesting, because while I know it takes me longer to finish a marathon as a walker, I never thought that runners would see that as an accomplishment. I've always viewed it in terms of me being older and slower and somehow inferior to runners. I never really looked at it as an advantage. I certainly never thought runners saw it that way. Interesting.

I have also, and I may seriously need to have my head examined for this decision, signed up for the annual Ted Corbitt 15K in Central Park on December 19th. Last year, we had temperatures of 10 degrees with a wind-chill of something like 4-below, followed by a snowstorm. For some of my fellow Team In Training friends and I, surviving it last year has become a sort of sick and twisted badge of honor. I still have my shirt from last year's race as a token of my survival. We hated that race so much, that participating this year has become sort of mandatory for the members of what we've begun referring to as the "Cult of TED". If you're anywhere near Central Park on December 19th, come and cheer for us! We will definitely need all the cheering we can get. Last year, my friend Norma and I came in third and fourth from last. We took a twisted pleasure at the thought of being the last ones to finish. We were actually disappointed that we weren't THE back of the pack! We're moving up though. Yesterday we were 112th and 114th from last!

Have I Mentioned That I HATE Blisters?

So, last Wednesday I attempted run/walking for the first time. Not bad! I not only survived it, I felt GREAT the next day. Saturday, I did it again for a total of an hour and forty minutes - one minute of running for every two minutes of walking. Somewhere during my 6.42 miles, I developed a blister. By the time I got home, I had not only logged 11.25 miles, I had rubbed the skin on my one toe raw. Seems the band aid I had put on my other toe rubbed the one next to it in a very wrong way. Lovely! Note to self: Don't use non-latex fabric band aids on your feet - EVER!

So, here I sit on a #7 train on my way home instead of training for my marathon. It's frustrating. I'm crabby and cranky, and writing this blog on my new DROID X using Blogger-droid. If there are no typos, I'll be amazed.

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