The first time in recorded literature Paula Radcliffe and PG Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster have not only shared a sentence (this one) but a headline (you clicked on it). What they have in common is cold bathing. I too have joined these honoured ranks. It feels like madness, and perhaps it induces it. But there are good reasons to follow the model, not least that Seneca (the champion stoic) favoured cold baths and long runs. Endurance training after all is a form of modern stoicism.
The Bath University Human Performance Centre advises the following regime:- alternating cold and warm showers for 30 seconds, three times each, as hot and cold as you can bear.
Sports psychologists have shown that cold showers not only reduce stress, but increase mental agility and toughness. The reason to adopt the contrast bathing approach above is to develop recovery. Using “intervals” of cold then hot is supposed to speed the removal of toxins from exercised muscles by stimulating blood flow. It certainly does that at this time year when the cold is particularly cold.
Today was a rest day, and I started using the recovery test in my Polar S625x running computer. For two weeks, I take a test three mornings each week to establish a baseline. This involves lying for a minute or so, usually pre-breakfast, in a quiet room with no distractions, and then standing for about the same. Thereafter I repeat the test a minimum of three times a week to measure, through variation in heart-rate during the “exercise” to determine to what extent the body has recovered. There is a total of eight different states from recovered to severely overtrained. The computer can even observe if my training is becoming too monotonous leading to a negative effect.
My resting heart rate was a bit variable this morning, but at its lowest (briefly 44 bpm) much lower than I have seen for a while.
Resting heart rate 48
Weight 71 kg
Mood 
Rest day, no exercise
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Kino’s Viktor Tsoi
When I used to coach a high school Cross Country team, we bathed in ice water at least once a week. The cold was quite a shock to the guys at the start of the season, but it helped that ‘Coach’ first demonstrated the practice. They eventually got in the habit and even asked to soak more often, especially when running twice a day during the summer months.
I have not heard of alternating cold/hot in thirty-second blasts and will have to try it!