Gave some blood Friday. Good experience. I have a few questions though. First off I'm 17, weigh 150 and of course ride everyday. I got my new bike Friday!...so of course I rode 30 miles Saturday avg. about 18-19 tryin to take it easy. My HR was about 10-15 bpm higher than usual - no surprise. Rode 25 miles today (Sunday) and still even though I'm on a 17lb bike and used to ride a 25lb bike, I find it hard to ride at any entinsity but that of a recovery ride which still feels like a work out. I think I'm going to take Monday off. Anyways I've been eating alot of meat and taking vitamins .....getting plent of iron etc. When should I be back in form? I have the MS 150 this week so I can't be feeling bad. Any advice?

Thanks

The plasma volume lost during the blood letting takes only 24 hours to replenish. Regenerating the lost red blood cells, (assuming you are not anemic to begin with) usually takes three weeks. All the iron in the world will not accellerate the bone marrow production of those lost red cells. The illegal way to do it is to get a shot of epogen, erthyropoitin, that artificlally induces the bone marrow to rev up production of red blood cell.....oh wait, that's doping!
So a week from now, your blood count may still be a little low so plasma volume will be very important...overhydrate a little more than usual to maintain it.

I gave a unit on Wed., after a 50 mile ride. I did a 20 mile ride Thur. and never noticed a difference at all. On Fri. 30 miles, Sat. 10 miles and Sunday I did 35 miles. I think everyone may react differently to the giving of blood.

Thank's for the donation BTW.

I know this topic has been addressed before but I wanted to chime in to say:

1) Good for you and thanks, kewlrunningz!
2) I'll pat my ownself on the back for giving a platelet/plasma donation this morning.
3) If this is available at your local blood center, you might want to consider it. You don't lose any of your RBCs so your oxygen uptake isn't affected. You still need to overhydrate, but you can easily fit it in your training/racing schedule.

At 150lbs you have a total circulating volume (TCV) of 4770cc's. Assuming a blood donation of one pint you donated 475cc's or 10% of your TCV. Following your donation your hematocrit (Hct.) (percentage of Red Blood Cells) is still the same. As your plasma regenerates in 24 hours your HCT. drops by 10 percent. In other words, you lost 10% of your ability to carry oxygen.

A 220 lb person would have lost 6.7% of thier capacity. Thats 33% less than you.

That's it, I weigh 220!

I weigh 215, but nobody wants my blood.

I just don't give blood. I have seen people give blood, then run an hour the next day and just pass out. I don't think I'll be giving blood until I'm not in sports any more.

Don't be fooled into thinking that eating more meat will help you in any way. Infact, if you are doing the MS 150 this week, I'd try to eat less meat and more carbs.

I'm admittedly saying this as a vegan, so I do have a minor bias against meat in the first place.

But that just goes to show... I haven't eaten meat or dairy for years, and my iron levels are perfect every time they check it when I donate blood. I also don't have any trouble recovering after donating.

Anyways, thanks for donating!