Monday, June 05, 2006

Off day

Ah Monday, the great recovery. A day of relaxation and a break from all the work.

Well, the running work anyway.

Today I stayed home to help get my schedule switched around as I'm transitioning from the 4pm-12 schedule to the 8am-4pm. Of course, the way this works best is if you don't sleep in until almost noon on the day you stay home. Hopefully I'll be able to get to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight.

The other purpose of staying home is to take care of some of the chores that pile up during shifts. So today was a day of cleaning and cooking to prepare for the coming week. Currently we have no food of any kind (well, except for the gross, old kind) in the house and so a trip to the store is in order.

Meanwhile, Leah's at Fermilab right now on shift. Besides having tons of people yelling requests at her down in the control room, she is also dealing with many frustrations with her analysis. These shifts are hard enough as it is without trying to do your thesis work at the same time. To top it all off, Leah managed all of two restless hours of sleep last night. So she spent today exhausted, in a basement, struggling with problems with her analysis. Yep, not a good day for Leah.

This very minute, Leah is playing a few games of beach volleyball to help out a team that was a bit short on the co-ed side of the co-ed league. Hopefully that is going decently well as the rest of the day was a bit of a bust.

Tomorrow will be 8 miles with 10, 100 meter sprints. Here's hoping tomorrow is a better day.

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One last thing. I wanted to mention that the ice bath went much better this time. Other than the fact that I quickly jammed myself into the water this time since I new it would only be bad for a second (no roger rabbit action...somehow that sounds wrong), I think I also really did the bath much more correctly. Last time, in order to fit my 6'3" frame into our diminutive tub, I had to lock my knees and keep my feet straight up...and not move. I think my muscles and tendons were all stretched out and then they contracted in the water and I basically sprained my ankles while icing them. Pathetic, I know, but apparently true.

This time, however, I just filled the bath with a lot more water so I could bend my legs and still have them under the water and then I rolled my ankles a bit and flexed my knees, moving around regularily. I think this helped with the circulation a great deal and today my legs feel great. I'm not stiff and I'm not sore. This is what I expected when we decided to bathe in ice.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm impressed that you did the ice bath again - I'm glad to hear it went better at least. I'm such a wimp that even an ice massage is horrible in my opinion even though I do it to my patients all the time.

Anonymous said...

You are braver souls than I! I tried an ice bath once. I made it up to my ankles and chickened out after standing there freezing for 3 minutes.

LeahC said...

the ice bath isn't really that bad. My legs have been feeling good so far. If it's super hard for you to just take the plunge, you might want to try sitting in the tub and have the cold water run until it's over your legs and then add some ice.

Full Metal Lunchbox said...

Congratulations on your ice bath.  No way I'm doing that, though, so I just have to hope to benefit vicariously through you and Leah.

Good luck on shift transition, and on your 8 miler tomorrow.

Jason said...

I see no reason why reading about ice baths wouldn't be just as beneficial as actually doing them.

I probably should have thought this through a bit more and just found a site taht writes about ice baths...I would save a fortune on ice.