Training after giving blood - Training

DJ Boyd

05/12/2002 at 18:52

anyone know how long it takes to recover fully after giving blood. I assumed 24hrs as that's what the nurse said but todays run made me think it must be longer as I was unusually lethargic (gave away blood yesterday). Perhaps it was the free biscuits!

The Evil Pixie pirate

pirate

05/12/2002 at 20:13

i took 3-4 days but then i am a newbie!!

Burnt Out

06/12/2002 at 00:16

You've got to replace the red blood cells not just the fluid. I seemed to run like a drain for two or three months after giving blood but I was probably just being lazy.

I still reckon it must take at least a week otherwise the runners who used to go in for blood doping would just have had a pint removed one day and then stuffed it back in the next before a world record attempt.

Martin Lewis

06/12/2002 at 08:11

There are already several threads on this subject, but here is a summary:
It takes 24-48 hours to replace the VOLUME of blood donated, but the full 100% recovery takes much longer, appx 1 month. These are my recovery times:
Steady Runs = next day onwards.
Brisk runs = one week later
Interval sessions = 1-2 weeks
Full training (long runs & intervals) = 2 weeks
Race = 2 weeks if I'm not too bothered about a good time.
Race = 4 weeks if I want a good result.
Martin.

06/12/2002 at 08:37

I gave blood last week and my mates at work (supposed scientists) reckoned i should be ok running the next day so i did and i was completely knackered. I felt like i was running at altitude or something. Anyway, been for 3 runs this week so far and feeling back to normal now. I would personally recommend two or three days of no running to give your body a chance to recover.

Linca

06/12/2002 at 08:44

I also asked when I gave blood for the first time a few weeks ago, and was told not to do anything strenuous for 24 hours, but was told for my next run to take it easy and see how I felt. I ended up not even doing my next scheduled run because I woke up with a terrible headache. Anyway, it felt like a good week and a half before I seemed to recover properly. Also they told me not to give blood 2 weeks either side of doing a race.
Also from previous threads it seemed that bigger people recovered quicker than smaller people.

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