Will donating blood affect my running?

you're dumb.

I've heard both ways, some say it won't really affect you after 24 hours, others say it takes longer for you to feel totally better

I did this a couple times without even thinking about it. After the second time I realized I was an idiot and I looked back and I had lost about 15 seconds on my mile time and it took at least a couple weeks before I was back to where I had been.

It's a heck of a lot longer than a day. Think multiple weeks, during which time your training is also compromised. It's a great thing to do, but if you're in the middle of heavy training or competition, you have to think carefully about what your goals are.

It will have a definite negative impact on performance, especially high end effort ranges.

Expect at least two weeks to return to normal. Possibly longer if other life stresses are at high levels.

If you do decide to donate, beef up your diet with iron rich foods to speed the rebuilding process.

ok thanks, after hearing these replies I probably won't donate

So, you just gonna let that poor kid die for want of a pinto of blood, just so you can run within a few seconds of your lousy PR's?

If you change your mind, it will affect you slightly and take three weeks for your blood count to return to normal. So that's like three weeks of altitude training, without the travel.

letemdie wrote:

So, you just gonna let that poor kid die for want of a pinto of blood, just so you can run within a few seconds of your lousy PR's?

If you change your mind, it will affect you slightly and take three weeks for your blood count to return to normal. So that's like three weeks of altitude training, without the travel.

Yeah man, its just like three weeks of altitude training. Except altitude training results in a higher number of RBC's, and this guy would just be waiting for them to come back to a normal level. Sounds stupid.

It is a terrible idea. Don't do it, really. I felt like shit for a solid 2 weeks after donating and didn't feel like myself for a whole month.

I totally killed my senior track season in high school doing this. I went from running 9:45 to 11:00 (4 days after donating blood) to 10:30 in the district meet (10 days after giving blood).

Your blood levels return to near normal after about 48 hours. But the difference between "near normal" and "normal" is enormous for a distance runner.

It does take about 2 weeks to fully recover and you can expect to race about 20 sec slower per mile during that time. Your training runs will feel like the same effort as always, however your pace will be much slower. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter if you have a race months away because you can continue to train at the same effort (but slower pace) while you recover. But, I would never donate within 2-3 weeks of a race if you want a good performance.

Think of it as the opposite of blood doping.

According a friend of mine friend who is a doctor, the amount of blood you donate has a negligible impact on your performance after 48 hours. Obviously you don't want to give the day before a race, but giving blood on Saturday shouldn't slow you down by 45 seconds for a race the following Saturday. That's all mental. Some assclown at some point told you that giving blood kills you, and you bought into it.

Halfman wrote:

According a friend of mine friend who is a doctor, the amount of blood you donate has a negligible impact on your performance after 48 hours. Obviously you don't want to give the day before a race, but giving blood on Saturday shouldn't slow you down by 45 seconds for a race the following Saturday. That's all mental. Some assclown at some point told you that giving blood kills you, and you bought into it.

Yeah, because every doctor is always right about everything, even things outside their area of expertise. I think this board could quickly overwhelm you with instances of doctors completely not understanding how running interacts with physiology. Read the scienceofsport.com guys to see an explanation of doctors who think that most of their profession only understands bodies at rest, and has no understanding of bodies while exercising. If your doctor told you that training doesn't help your running, would you believe that as well?

Countless people, myself included, have experienced the slowdown associated with donating blood. Science more often explains the mechanics of what we already knew worked. Rarely does it teach us much significant and new that affects our training. And I should point out that these things seem to affect different people differently. Some guys might slow down an average of 5sec/mile while others might slow down 20. I know some guys who's racing turns to crap when on antibiotics, and others for whom there's barely a noticeable difference.

My (admittedly limited) understanding is that blood plasma is replenished within 48 hours, but that it takes much longer to replenish your red blood cell count. This may be considered 'back to normal' by the standards of day to day activities, but that's quite a bit different than a distance race.

It seems pretty obvious to me. If you want to donate blood, that's a great thing to do. But if you value your performances (and are loyal to a team), you should do it in the downtime after your season, or very early in the base phase. Some may label that as selfish, but it's up to you to set your priorities. Frankly, if you donate twice a year, after track and after XC, that's pretty good in my book, and is way better than most the population.

If you're in any kind of shape, they probably won't let you give blood because your heart rate will be too low. Sounds like BS, but it's true. Back in my fitter days my RHR was sub-40 and I wasn't allowed to donate.

A normal person doing normal day to day activities will feel fully recovered in no more than a day usually. A runner who is constantly pushing the limits of his endurance where every second counts in races is a different story. I had a close friend give blood at the start of track season in HS. He ran a 2:01 800 at the start of the season with hopes of running 1:54ish by the end of the season(he ran a 1:57 the year before.) After he gave blood, his best 800 was a 2:18 the rest of the season. That is more than mental. There were no other signs that this was due to something other than giving blood.

If you're going to give blood, skip the school's blood drive and wait until after the seaons is done and go to a local community blood center and donate then.

Ask Lasse Viren!

Halfman wrote:

According a friend of mine friend who is a doctor, the amount of blood you donate has a negligible impact on your performance after 48 hours. Obviously you don't want to give the day before a race, but giving blood on Saturday shouldn't slow you down by 45 seconds for a race the following Saturday. That's all mental. Some assclown at some point told you that giving blood kills you, and you bought into it.

From personal experience as a blood donor and runner I can assure you that your friend the doctor is wrong. In my experience the 15 second per mile hit at high aerobic pace is about right for a few days immediately following the donation. Your blood plasma levels return to normal within 24 hours of the donation and you're fine to do normal activities and easy paced running, but the red blood cell count and full oxygen carrying capacity takes about a month to return to pre-donation levels. This is why they only let you donate every 60 days. I donate a few times per year, but no longer do it during the few months preceding events that I consider important.

I donated twice in high school my junior year. Once right after cross country and once a month before track. It really does affect you and it's foolish to do it during the season when you're doing hard training. I was only doing easy runs after I donated for a couple weeks.