Save a life, ruin your training...

Joseph has a big heart. He likes to help others by giving blood often. As long as I have known him, he has given blood at every blood donation event he has known about. I even remember him telling me of his frustrations after his internship in China 3 years ago, because he had to wait longer than normal to give blood since he had been out of the country. So, a week and a half ago his work had a blood drive. He donated of course... but he donated a little extra. They asked if he would do a "power red" donation, where he would donate twice the amount of red blood cells, and the regular amount of everything else in his blood. Because he is smart, he asked if this would affect his 7 mile run the next day. Because the worker was uninformed on the matter, she said no. He gave the blood and felt good about himself. The next day, he tried to run those 7 miles. He was only able to run about a mile and a half. His heart rate was at the rate it is when he has run 10 miles. His legs couldn't keep moving. He walked home, and was beat for most of the day. He did a little research and realized that since red blood cells carry oxygen to the body, he may as well have been holding his breath the whole run. Word on the street is that typical recovery for this is around 8-12 weeks. Too bad the Marathon is only about 6 weeks away. It has definitely messed up his training. That's 3 months down the drain.