Apheresis left me weak

Yesterday a blood donation bus came by the office for the quarterly donation drive. I'd donated whole blood twice before; but this time, the bus had an apheresis machine for doing Double Red Blood Cell process.

Human has an average of 12 units of blood (a unit is 450ml). It is composed primarily of plasma (55%) and red blood cells (45%). A whole blood donation removes one unit of this mixture. A Double Red Blood Cell procedure removes one unit of only RBC, which is about the same amount of RBC removed in 1/4.5= 2.2 whole blood donation.

I had one needle stuck into a vein on the inside of elbow. Blood was first drawn into the machine. It then separated out the whole blood to plasma and RBC. The plasma and some saline were returned to the vein through the same needle. This cycle was repeated four times. The procedure took 40 minutes vs. 30 minutes for whole blood.

When the plasma was being returned, I could feel that it was cold. My fingertips and lips were prickling because of the cold. I was at that point where I would almost start shivering.

I felt weak throughout the day, weaker than after doing whole blood donation. When I got home, I slept almost immediately. I felt good about donating, though.

3rd run

2.72 miles at 35 minutes. 314 calories.

4 days later, ran longer

This is the second time I went running. This time I managed to do 2.5 miles in 30 minutes.
It was such a marked improvement. Last time, I stopped after 23 minutes because of exhaustion. This time, I actually sprinted in the last minute and could still go on for a long time if I wanted. But I didn't want to force myself yet, so I stopped at 30 minutes, just as I planned.

This is such a nice surprise. I regularly ran 9 years ago for 6 months but could never break the 2 miles or 20 minutes ceiling no matter how hard I tried. Back then I was still smoking 1 pack a day too.

Now, 9 years older at 32, I am doing better than ever!

Aching body -- starting to exercise

This coming Winter, I want to be fit enough to ski through Whitetail Mountain's Exhibition in the middle of February from top to bottom without stopping. The moguls will be big and the trenches deep. I've never been able to do it without stopping at least once.

So, I started running last Thursday. 1.75 miles in 23 minutes. I followed up with various weight exercises: wirst curl, bicep curl, tricep curl, shoulder dumbell shrug, back extension, bench press.

My body was sore the whole Saturday, but the pain has abated today. I'll do another one tomorrow.