I never knew I could do that....frostbite

I'm going to start a new series on things that happened during my training that either made me discover something about myself or things I did to myself during my training that I never considered or perhaps I never knew were possible.

I gave myself frostbite. This wouldn't be a big deal if I lived in Canada, but I live in Florida. So how in the world did I give myself frostbite. Well, I froze my skin. Since my injury, I would either lie in an ice bath, place my legs in a cooler of ice, or in the evening elevate and ice my ankles and shins. Well, I found that the area around the injury was very sensitive to pressure and would often hurt if the ice poked it.

Lamenting this to a concerned family member (my mom), she made me ice slushy bags. These were ziplocks filled with water and rubbing alcohol. (You chemistry folks should be able to see where this is going.) The first time I used them, they were great. I was in a cold bath and I placed them on both shins. They conformed perfectly. The bath began to warm and I simply elevated my leg and iced the shins. Of course, after a little while I stood up and showered not thinking about it.

Later that day, my skin on the left leg was a little irritated. I figured some alcohol was on the outside of the bag and had caused a little reaction with my skin.

The next time I used them, they were solid (4 degrees F or so). I placed them on the other shin and after a while (notice I used the word 'while' several times here. I don't know how long I had them on, and they cold felt so much better than the pain I kinda stopped paying attention to how long the ice was on.)

After removing the bag, I thought some of the condensation had left some ice on my skin. So I went to brush it off when I realized, my skin was hard. I panicked a little and rubbed them gently until it was no longer frozen. As I watched, the area that was hard, turned a bright pink like the irritation on the other leg from the day before. It was then that I realized I had given myself frostbite on both legs. I never really felt a thing, but this was now three weeks from my first marathon and I was worried I had done some tissue damage.

It has been four weeks since I froze my skin, and I will take and post some pictures soon, but just know that I am definitely going to have some scaring. The skin has been healing from the inside out and the best I can describe is that the damaged tissues is slowly making it to the surface like dry ashen colored skin. So no matter how much I think I've gotten this running thing down, something knew is always around the corner!