Blood

Tonight was yet another lesson in the world of physical fitness. It is probably a good thing that I picked up on this one quickly.
Yesterday I gave blood through a program where a local hospital comes to our church. It is super convenient because it takes out the whole making an appointment aspect. The church announces when the blood drive is going to happen. Once you are in the system the hospital sends out cards letting everyone who has given in the past know when the next date is. They ask everyone to sign up for a time but in reality they are willing to take folks whenever they have space to take them. I try to get there early so that I have the service to sit through before trying to drive anywhere. It would be a serious bummer to get dizzy behind the wheel of the car. If I get dizzy in church though I figure that God is more willing to forgive me than the wall on next to the road!
They hand us a little sheet of paper that tells us what our blood pressure, pulse and various other vitals are. This paper also has final instructions. It reminds the reader that people with certain kinds of history should not give blood. It also gives instructions for post donation activities. I diligently drank the water that it said I should drink. i diligently passed the water they said I should drink through to the other side. Instead of going to the gym I took the dog for a short walk. In all honesty the walk was shorter than planned in part because the water they told me to drink was ready to get off the bus...yesterday.
Tonight I went to the gym. It was past the 24 hour period in which I was told to not to crazy exciting exercise so I figured I was safe. I did notice around the half hour mark that things were not going exactly according to plan. Normally my body is doing fine but my head tells me to stop. I just override my head and keep going. Tonight though my body seemed to agree with my head. I looked down at the little screen on the elliptical machine and saw that my heart rate was up to about 185! Normally at that stage of the game it is only up to about 165. It never gets up to 180. I quickly slowed the pace down by a few miles per hour and let my heart rate stabilize before slowly increasing my speed with an eye on my heart rate.
I guess the lesson I learned tonight goes something like this. My iron levels in my blood were on the lower side of normal. When the blood was drawn that dropped the amount of oxygen that my blood could move. If my blood couldn't move as much oxygen as my body was used to and needed to have moved my body responded by increasing my heart rate in order to circulate the blood quicker.
The moral of the story? I'm going to have to take it easy for a few days!