Being a runner pushing 50 (both age and miles per week), I have become something of an expert on ice bags.
Actually, the real experts these days call it "cold therapy." But, really, it's just ice bags. Back in the late 70s, when I first started running, I simply threw some ice in a Baggie, zipped it up and slapped it on the body part. Then I'd toss it in the freezer and reuse it. But you'd have to slap the against a kitchen counter the next time you used it to break up the molded ice. Such a hassle.
Yes, there always was the bag o' frozen peas, which worked like a charm. Old school runners still use Birdseye.
In modern times, however, we've got all sorts of fancy ice bags. I must have 10 of various shapes, sizes and icy filling. I've got kinds secured in mesh packets, some with Velcro straps, and others featuring that slimy blue stuff.
It's that latter type that drives me to find the ideal bag. I like the intense coldness of the blue slime (what exactly is that compound, anyway?) but after a few months of use I find they leak out of the corners, depositing globs of oozing blueness on my legs.
The other day I stumbled upon a new (at least to me) entrant in the ice-bg marketplace, one that combines molding ability of a frozen pea bag with the consistent coldness of the blue slimy bags.
It's called Peas Cold Packet, sold by CVS. (See photo.) Instead of slime, there are little balls of cold that slide around your knee, hamstring, groin, whatever. It appears sturdy enough not to leak. But only time -- and my aching glutes -- will tell.
I know. I know. I'm obsessed.
Maybe I should just, you know, chill.
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