Peer pressure drove me to donate a pint today. It's a bit scary, and I personally don't intend to make a habit out of it, but I suppose it's the right thing to do now and then. The pre-donation interview was more personal than I expected, but when your history is as boring as mine, it's no big deal.
Anyway, the blood-bank person said "no vigorous exercise for 24 hours" so I guess that would include the Tuesday TTT session. Well, that's a disappointment! Apparently it takes a few weeks to fully regenerate the lost red blood cells, so I'm in for an interesting experiment in "reverse blood doping"... Is how I felt in training last week (relative to this week) comparable to the improvement after getting a Dr. Fuentes boost in the TdF??
Hey what about this... could there be any physiological adaptations due to training hard soon after donating blood? Adaptations that would be beneficial after the blood is regenerated? And further, if there is, would that be cheating? Some people think it's cheating to use an altitude tent, or even one of these devices (they sponsor Symmetrics so Jake has tried one). Where do you draw the line? The obvious answer is The Rule Book. It's black and white--if you blood dope, use EPO or any other banned drug, you are a cheating scumbag. Otherwise, knock yourself out.
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