Saturday's Shenanigans

What do you get when you put this:

In a bag, carry it up the stairs:

Put it in here: ( You know where this is going)

Sadly remove the down jacket, the Lulu shorts, put on the designated "warm" shorts and...

In we go...

But its too cold! I think the tap water was cold enough. Water shoes are mandatory.

This expression pretty much says it all: HOLY COW!

I guess taking an ice bath means that either I really did some work that required it, or we just have so much snow I figured why not. A little bit of both I guess. Working back to some lunges, squats, etc with the TRX coupled with some hard(er) rides and a few miles on the TM meant when i got up in the middle of the night to go use the bathroom I could barely walk! oops.

But maybe not oops. Now is the time to be sore I guess, even tho I wince thinking about increasing the strength sessions in the future.

So another exciting day in Minnesota.

Views from my Ice Bath

 I couldnt get pics of the ice bath in THE LAKE. (Superior) I think i would have dropped the camera, but the Encampment river provided nearly as chilly water.  I cannot recall a weekend on the NorthShore where we had little if any wind and sun ...full sun. Still not much above 60 degrees and a north breeze reminded us that Canadian air wasnt far from us. Great weekend. 

More later.

A visit to THE lake.
For those of you that dont know what lake this is here are a few pics for you.
Granted these pics are from august, 2007 but it still, THE lake demands respect, ALWAYS.

This fella is my dad. When we were kids we used to get 1 cent (yep a penny) for every second we could stay in the lake. The rules were loose, but not just wading in there, i mean really IN the lake, body submerged. Your head could be out of the water. Of course you had to dunk your head bc a dry head was a sign of a "too bad you didnt quite do it," feeling.
My dad still goes down to THE lake, with his thermometer, his towel and the dog ( hoping she doesnt swim across the lake after the loons as she did one time), and takes his dunk. At 80 years young i think this is a succesful recipe for a long life ahead.

Since i have to do some racing this weekend i decided to make myself a lake.
Drop myself in and...
Dang, that is cold. I think it took me about 4 tries to really earn even a dollar in this one.

I had to get out a few times and then figured the key was to keep my toes out of the water. My teammates know my toes dont do well in winter, so I think the idea that they would be ok in an ice bath aka The LAKE, is silly. Oops. Luckily i had a nice warm board shirt on...And perhaps this will prepare me for the wind/rain and sleet i may have beating against my legs this weekend.

And for the record, when it is 80 degrees or 90 or even 100, I will say "Bring it."