Stupid question about blood tests / marathon running

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Mrs Winkle Sep 2011 10:45am, 22 Sep 2011 5,014 posts	0 Mrs Winkle I am booked in for a raft of blood tests next week (28th September) and I am running Abingdon Marathon just over 3 weeks later. Now I know that after giving blood, performance can be affected for up to 10-12 weeks but I was wondering if this applies for blood tests at all? Obviously it will be less blood (I'd suspect 3 or 4 tubes looking at the sheet I've been given) so does this mean I might be a little under par performance-wise for a month or so? I feel very stupid asking this, but I really want to give Abo my best shot for a new PB.
Pootle Sep 2011 10:52am, 22 Sep 2011 8,016 posts	0 Pootle I wouldn't have thought it would have made a difference, but then I'm not a doctor so I could be talking complete bollox! What I have found is that taking iron supliments a week or so before giving blood and then for a couple of week after helps me regain my performance a lot quicker than without them
fetcheveryone Sep 2011 11:06am, 22 Sep 2011 10,172 posts	0 fetcheveryone When Katie and I did our lab testing, we had a small amount of blood taken every three minutes for about half an hour each time, every day for four days. We didn't notice any impact from it, aside from a few hours of sore fingers, what with all the prickinating and so forth.
plodding hippo Sep 2011 11:07am, 22 Sep 2011 36,624 posts	0 plodding hippo they wont take enough to make a difference Mrs W
Paul_G Sep 2011 11:09am, 22 Sep 2011 First-time poster!!	0 Paul_G I donated a blood sample THE DAY BEFORE my 2010 VLM and absolutely walloped my PB... it will be so small as to be insignificant.
Mrs Winkle Sep 2011 12:02pm, 22 Sep 2011 5,017 posts	0 Mrs Winkle Thanks all
Frobester Sep 2011 1:31pm, 22 Sep 2011 16,651 posts	0 Frobester I lost blood from a self-inflicted head wound (bashing it accidentally on the sharp edge of my car door) 30 minutes before the start of the Berkhamsted Half, and equally bashed my PB. I'm sure there's something there about pressure release...
Mrs Winkle Sep 2011 3:09pm, 22 Sep 2011 5,021 posts	0 Mrs Winkle Ah, so this could be performance enhacing?
Frobester Sep 2011 3:10pm, 22 Sep 2011 16,656 posts	0 Frobester Quite possibly. I got it checked out post-race by the friendly St John's Ambulance people, and had a mile or so to walk from the car park to the start line, which helped to stem the bleeding and get rid of my dizziness!
macca53 Sep 2011 3:19pm, 22 Sep 2011 14,305 posts	0 macca53 this may be a dumb question, but are the blood tests to detect/diagnose some underlying condition? If so it's likely to be the condition that might affect your decision to go for it, rather than the fact that you've had a few mls of blood taken.