KERRE McIVOR

BATHING BEAUTY KERRE’S RULES FOR THE PERFECT SOAK

One of the great joys in life is a long, hot bath. I’ve always loved them. Preferably deep and long, so I can stretch out, and nicely enhanced with soothing bath salts and scented candles to add to the fragrant ambience.

I don’t want music while I bathe. In fact, I prefer complete silence and woe betide anyone who disturbs my peace.

One of my favourite children’s books – one I used to read to Kate and which she is now reading to her children – is Five Minutes’ Peace. All Mrs Large, the mother elephant, wants is five minutes’ peace while she relaxes in the bath, but one by one, all her little baby elephants join her in the bathroom and in the end, they end up in the bath while she slips downstairs to have a cup of tea and three minutes and 45 seconds exactly of peace before they all troop back down again.

I like to read while I’m in the tub, but that can be problematic. You don’t want to take good hardbacks in there, but nor do you want cheap paperbacks, where the ink runs all over your fingers. The best bet is a magazine (may I recommend the Weekly?), then make sure you have a flannel and body wash within easy reach, and you’re set for half an hour of complete and utter bliss. Oh, and make sure you have a towel ready and waiting. There’s nothing to shatter the serenity like having to bellow to a family member to bring you a towel.

Worse is being on your own and having to haul yourself out, dripping and naked, and tiptoe gingerly across the floor, taking care not to slip, to get a towel yourself. The indignity of being discovered after a fall, arms and legs akimbo and possibly broken, with all your God-given talents on display doesn’t bare thinking about!

Baths are supposed to be good for you if you’re feeling lonely too, not just if you’re wanting peace and quiet. The warmth of the water embracing you is akin to a hug, apparently. Which may be why I love baths but I don’t like spas. All those bubbles and jets, and churning of water in spas really doesn’t do it for me. There’s far too much going on. I like hugs, but I don’t like to be rubbed vigorously up and down.

I hope I can always enjoy baths. Mum warns me that some of her friends have to turn around on their hands and knees to get themselves out of baths now they’re in their eighties. I’m not even sure how that would work, but I imagine, if I’m lucky enough to live long enough, I’ll find out.

A bath at the end of a run is just the best reward I can give myself, especially as the days get colder. When I was training for my marathons and enduring the long 30-kilometre runs in the lead-up, the only thing that kept me going during the last 5kms was the thought of the foamy hot bath waiting for me at home. That and breakfast.

And now, to my absolute and utter joy, I find that the University of Coventry has done a study and found that a long, hot bath brings about the same benefits as aerobic exercise. Your core body temperature is raised, your blood flow improves as you soak, and that can lower blood pressure and control your blood sugar levels and alleviate depression. But it needs to be hot and it needs to stay hot.

Kind of Swedish hot, so that may be a little problematic if you’re keeping an eye on the electricity bill.

Saunas, supposedly, offer the same benefits. But I cannot tell you how thrilled I was to read this, given I have very tentatively laced up my shoes and started – with tiny, slow baby steps – to run again, just as winter is about to descend.

Now, with this empirical research behind me, if I wake to a howling wind and driving rain, I’ll tell my coach I’ll sit this run out – in my bath. And that will be almost, kind of, exactly the same as going for a run.

‘The warmth of the water embracing you is akin to a hug’