Chocolate milk, ice baths, and sleep, the best post workout combo!

This week I'm in annual training for work. My favorite day of annual training is Mondays because we shoot AR-15's & shotguns half the day, & go to the gym and have "mandatory workout time " at the end of the day. I always enjoy my mandatory workout day because I get to do the workout I would have done on my own at work while getting paid. By the time I get home from work my day of physical training is done & I can have the rest of the night with my family!

Today while at the gym I ran half mile sprints. 2 months ago I increased the distance of my sprints from quarter miles to half miles. The 1st month of half mile sprint training I did the way I have always done them: I went to the track, ran a half mile, then walked a quarter mile for recovery, repeat.

This month I decided to try something one of the fastest triathletes I've raced with, Davis Fairbanks, suggested. He told me to do my sprint training on the treadmill. The reasoning being when I'm used to running a half mile sprint at a 3:45 pace on a track I could get on a tread mill & force myself to run at a 3:30 min half mile. Apparently this new treadmill strategy works MIRACLES!!! At the end of June I was running on the track at a 3:45 half mile, and could push myself to a 3:30 half on the treadmill. Today I tried a 3:10 pace, & it was easy. On my next interval I tried a 3:05 pace, harder, but I wasn't hurting like I'm used to. I ran my last 3 half mile repeats at a 2:54 pace! That's a faster pace than I used to be able to run my quarter mile repeats! I was only scheduled for 5 half mile repeats. I was so excited I did 6. If I was smart & was thinking about the rest of my weeks training I would have stopped there, but I was PUMPED UP I decided to see what pace I could run quarter mile sprints at too. I ran 3 quarter mile sprints at a 1:22 pace!! That's a 5:28 one mile pace!!! The good news is I'm building a heck of a fast engine in this antique body. The bad news is I trashed my legs today & may have pushed myself so hard I may be so fatigued I may be unable to push myself as hard as I should on tomorrow's bike interval workout.

To ensure I recover enough to have a good workout tomorrow I'm doing a couple tried & true fast recovery techniques.

1) 24 ounces of the worlds most perfect post workout drink: chocolate milk! Seriously, it's been proven. I posted awhile back some of the articles I'd found on this subject.
http://cody-the-clydsdale.blogspot.com/2008/08/perfect-post-workout-recovery-drink.html

2) The other miracle recovery technique is to rotate soaking 10 minutes in an ice bath as cold as I can get it, then 10 minutes in a hot bath as hot as I can stand. I usually continue to rotate 10 minutes of each until the ice water is no longer uncomfortably cold & the hot water is no longer uncomfortable hot. Tonight I got in 4 ten minute soaks in each one.

I don't soak in ice/hot baths very often because it makes my wife mad. I completely understand why it makes her mad: 1st I take all the ice we have in the house and dump it in a tub filled with nothing but cold water on one side of the house. Then I use ALL of the hot water in the water heater to fill up the bath tub on the other side of the house. Then I end up running butt naked through the house soaking wet between the 2 tubs that are on opposite sides of the house for an hour and a half soaking the floor, carpets, and everything else in the process. I try not to do this to our house-er- to my wife rather very often. Here's an article on ice baths:
http://www.google.com/gwt/x?q=ice+bath+recovery&ei=KGZXTNDWEs3_tgfzmJGlAw&ved=0CAoQFjAB&hl=en&source=m&rd=1&u=http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID%3D8731

3) the third miracle recovery technique I'll be utilizing is making sure I get enough sleep tonight. Depending on how tired I am I'm going to try & get 7-9 hrs tonight.

Hopefully I'll recover well enough today that I can be equally successful at tomorrows bike interval workout.