Blood donation before a big ride?

[Aquila]

First, yay for you, and congrats on heading into your first metric! And equally, yay for being a blood donor!

If you're a regular donor, then you probably have a pretty good idea how your body handles donating.

In the past, how have you felt the next day? Have you ridden? Do you tend to have good energy? (I think the lifting heavy things restriction is mostly about reducing the likelihood of re-opening the vein under the skin and making a bigger bruise/sore area. But I'm not sure.)

The other side is how you feel biking and how far you've been going and so forth. If you've been biking 50 miles with ease, then the metric probably isn't going to be that hard for you. If you've been riding lots less, then the metric is probably going to be harder for you.

Like you, I donate regularly, and I've learned over the years that I don't have any problems with exercise the next day, so long as it's exercise I'm pretty used to. Add another day, and I'd be good for whatever. But that's me.

So I'd do the donation and the metric, using both as an "excuse" to drink lots of water and eat good food. For me, my first metric was more psychologically than physically hard; I just couldn't quite believe I could bike that far, and then I did. But I'm like that with new goals sometimes. The next long ride (75) was way easier for me than the metric because I didn't have the same big goal thing in mind. (I'm a beginner, and still working up to a regular century; my first metric was earlier this summer.)

As you mention, though, you can always reschedule your donation for the week after your metric. The blood bank folks will still be happy to see you.

Good luck with your metric!

PS. This is a great question! I'm interested in the different responses.