I donated blood yesterday evening and they told me "don't do anything physical for 24 hours, don't
smoke, don't drink alcohol, etc." I barely paid attention because I've heard this little speech
before. It's the cheap high from drinking that I think about....
So, this morning I decide to go out and ride my mountain bike. I've gotta admit, I was getting a bit
tired, but I decided to go over one more rock. This one was larger than the others, about the size
of two cement blocks joined side to side. I *apparently* misjudged the timing on lifting the front
wheel and hit the rock square on, creating a nice endo. After lifting the bike off of me, I decided
to stand up. That's when the world turned sparkly and tilted.
It appears that donating blood DOES actually impair your mountain biking! The missing 650 grams of
blood must have affected me after all. I just wanted to share this because I was relatively close to
home. If one of you does this and is out on a trail somewhere, you'll crash---and then "crash" and
wonder what is going on. It took a while to recover enough so that I could get on the bike. Pedaling
made my blood pressure rise, I guess, and after a bit I was more steady than at first. At first, I
couldn't even stay standing, much less ride a bike!
Pat in TX