Interesting write up / reply slider_phil .
Makes sense ,
I think that may be why during a Enduro race I'll snack on a bit of nut sesame bar for glucose sugar hit . found it added that axtra energy during high intensity outputs .
Sure does Safreek . Made me question the food humans eat and how healthy that bowl of cereal really is ? For food or is it a bowl of sugar .
Definitely! Eating healthy to loose weight and eating to race are two very different things. When you want to race or ride at your best most of us under fuel. That's why I always end up at a bakery or pub following a ride because I haven't kept up my calorie intake during a ride haha.
Another thing most of us forget is that doing the ride isn't making us fitter, it's the recovery afterwards. So train for what you want to improve, then rest and eat properly and those adaptions will happen. Our bodies are good at doing what we do to them. So if you train for long low intensity rides all the time. You're going to be good at that. But once you start having to put short aerobic bursts in for punchy climbs it's going to be a weakness.
And remember, experiment and see what works best for you. Everyone responds a bit differently but there's some hard science you can't work around in regards with how your muscles use energy. Fats for work under threshold, and the closer you get to that lactate threshold (the point of effort where you're only just able to clear lactic acid but it's hurting bad) the more glycogen those muscles need to work. Think of that glycogen use as a fader switch. The harder your working, the more glycogen your muscles need.
That's where being keto adapted helps as you can run much closer to your threshold using fat for fuel. But if you build that threshold doing strength intervals (and eating carbs to fuel that exercise) then you will be faster overall and be better trained at efforts above threshold. MTBing is a punchy sport and every single one of us is doing pinch climbs that are pushing us way past our threshold. So what I think should be the goal for all mountain bikers? Build that FTP and put the hurt on your friends on that next climb