Then, last week, the nice people from the Red Cross called me and told me that my blood donations have affected 33 people! (Awesome!) They asked if I could come in again and I said, "Sure! Sign me up for tomorrow!" This was Thursday and I thought Friday would be a good day since I didn't have any workouts for that day. (Excpet an easy 2 mile run, and the climbing gym in the evening with Pete....yeah, forgot those.)
So Friday I skipped running and went to give blood. I took the kids with me and they proceeded to eat who-knows-how-many cookies while they watched a movie and waited for me. Oh well, at least they like going with me...
I felt just fine after giving blood, like I usually do. No big deal. It always make me feel really grateful that I'm healthy enough to be able to do this small thing to make a difference in someone's life.
We went to Wheeler Farm when I was done and had a great time walking around, looing at the animals and farm equiptment and playing on the fun playground there. It was such a warm, beautiful day, we were happy to get outside!
My arm was feeling kind of sore that evening, and they do tell you not to do any physical activity for the rest of the day, plus my hip was also hurting so Pete and I decided to skip climbing that night. I'm sure that was a good call.
The next day (Saturday), I woke up feeling sick to my stomach. I had a really hard time getting up and getting going. But I feel like that a lot lately! Usually I will go do my workout anyway, then I'll feel better as soon as I start.
I put my long run off until around noon, and finally decided that it would make me feel better if I just did it. It was a really nice day so Elle wanted to ride her bike with me! That was really nice. She was so cute - she loves riding her bike. She was much too fast for me, though and had to keep stopping to wait for me. We did 3 miles then I brought her home, and took a bathroom/drink/forehead wiping break while we were there and grabbed my music. I told Pete that I just felt so out of shape! I was so hot and sweaty and it just felt so hard to me! But I just had 4 miles to go so I got a drink and went back out!
It seriously wasn't until I left again that I realized that maybe, just maybe I was feeling so bad and having such a hard time because I was low a pint of blood! Duh! I guess I've never had problems after giving blood before so I didn't even think about it, but then again I don't think I've been dumb enough to schedule a blood donation the day before a long run before. Live and learn.
I actually felt ok for most of the run, other than it just feeling really hard, but on the last mile I started feeling sick again and even had to walk for a few minutes.
But I finished my 7 miles, missing blood or not! It just took me 1:22:55 to do it!
I totally crashed when I got home. After stretching and showering, I had to have Pete finish the breakfast burritos I started making for lunch because I just felt like I was going to pass out. Eating did help me feel a little better, but I still just felt sick and took it really easy for the rest of the day and drank as much water as I could. Since we had such a late lunch, and Pete had taken the kids out to dinner, I decided to help my body recover by making a super juice for dinner.
That's spinach, broccoli, kale, strawberries, carrots, an orange, a lemon and some ginger. It was pretty good (other than that strong broccoli flavor!), and I felt SO much better after drinking that!
I relaxed the rest of the night and took it easy on Sunday as well, even though I was feeling pretty much all better. (I actually had Pete pick me up a pregnancy test just to make sure since I was feeling so crappy, but it was negative! Phew! Haha)
But then, Sunday night I suddenly felt a cold coming on. What!? Dang it! It's crazy how fast those colds can come on, and I'm sure killing myself the day before didn't help.
I took Monday off and sadly decided to skip Zumba/Ripped on Tuesday too. I played outside with George a little because it was pretty nice out, but it was starting to get cold again. All he wanted to do was play on Daddy's "cycle." :)
Thursday I put my run off because I was going to do a run in the evening with a friend, but she ended up canceling so I decided to skip it too because I was just still feeling sick. Bla.
Friday I did an easy 2 mile run with George in the stroller, then my Pilates video. Again, the run was (you guessed it!) really hard, and I stuck to easier levels on some of the Pilates moves then I normally do.
It snowed Thursday and Friday so, sick or not, I was going to get out for one more day of snowboarding! My dad came over this morning to watch the kids (he's so great!) so Pete and I could head up to Brighton. My happy place. :)
It is so weird because I woke up with my left hamstring SO sore! (Um, I ran two slow, flat miles yesterday, wth!?) I'm icing it right now. Hopefully it will knock it off and feel better tomorrow.
I was supposed to run 8 miles today, but after snowboarding and all the hiking in deep, awesome snow we did, plus still feeling sick and having a sore leg, I decided it wasn't necessary. It was seriously a beautiful day snowboarding, and the snow was amazing! I'm so glad we got to go out!
What is up with my goggles?
So, moral of this story? Be careful about what you try to do after giving blood, because even if you think you're superman (or supermom), giving blood literally takes something out of you and you can't expect to be 100% yourself until you give your body time to rebuild what was lost.
I'm ok with the workouts I missed this week, I feel like it was for a worthwhile cause, but I really hope I'll be able to get back to my regular routine next week!
