I gave blood this afternoon, with the understanding that this will likely have an effect on the 25K benchmark due to the depletion of my hemoglobin. Is there anything I can do to minmize the impact besides increasing my consumption of fluids?

I asked about this early in the season, and Coach Eric gave me a pretty solid answer. Expect it to have a major effect -- I'll try to find his post and cut-and-paste it in here. And yes, the fluids are even more important!

Replacing the lost fluids is great though blood volume is usually restored within several days. The bigger challenge for distance running is the to replace the oxygen-carrying red blood cells. Probably would help to eat iron-rich foods, take some supplements and to get sufficient sleep this week. I've heard that red meat is rich in heme iron which is particularly well absorbed.

I think in my prior post I note that in donating a pint of whole blood that you have reduced your red blood cells by 7-10% (typical adults have 5-6 quarts of whole blood volume) ... so that's enough of a change that you will need to drop your pace a little bit.

You did a great thing by donating blood, and as for the 25K benchmark you'll be fine. That being said, I'd recommend against doing blood donations within 2 weeks of our longer benchmarks or the marathon.

Thanks for the advice. It sounds like I'm doing about everything I can, but I'll grill up some T Bones tonight for good measure.

The only other suggestion (jokingly) I received from the Red Cross was that I consider blood doping. Unfortunately they're of the impression that they only accept deposits and therefore couldn't schedule me for a withdrawal prior to Saturday's run. Oh well.

In case anyone is interested...

I ran the Helvetia Half at a sub-10 minute pace with an average heart rate of 156. I ran the 25K benchmark at an average pace of 11:20/mile with an average heart rate of 163. I'm not claiming that the entire difference was due to giving blood, but unless I come down with a cold in the next day or so, it seems that the majority could be attributed to the blood donation. Outside of a earlier training run with a chest cold, that is the only time I've run slower than a 10-minute mile, especially with that high of a heart rate. I'll be following Coach Eric's advice and not giving blood within at least two weeks of future bench marks.

The heat has a large roll in your higher heart rate and slower pace as well. Just something else to consider.

I do know proper grammar ... most of the time. I meant, role, not roll.

I concur w/Megan -- the weather at Helvetia was much more favorable than in Saturday's 25K so that could account for some of your lessened performance. I know for me that the 25K was much harder, because I know I don't perform as well in warm, sunny weather. Somebody (maybe it was Bill Abendroth), said that in marathon training you are doing an "experiment of one" -- that is, you're finding out the effect of weather, blood donations, conditioning, rest, nutrition on one experimental subject: yourself. So don't beat yourself up -- look at this as a lesson learned and you will continue to improve.