Keto, does it work for endurance cycling?

Last year I raced the Transcontinental. In fact I set up this blog to pen my thoughts about the crazy events that were no doubt going to unfold in the race. I completed the race and wrote up my account but never published it. Why? Because I like it being a story I can tell while I'm out on the road, riding an Audax or whatever. If you ever ride with me then please tell me some of your stories and I'll trade with some of mine. Should you be looking for an account of the TCR to read now then please refer to my friend and riding buddy Simon's blog where he plays out the race from his perspective, you can find that here: (https://sjromaine.wordpress.com/). Simon and I rode as a pair in the 2015 race.

I'm talking about this race as this is what made me think about a keto diet. What I found interesting about last years race was the difference in fueling strategy between Simon and myself. He seemed to exist purely on the dew of life, having a nibble here and a snack there. I, on the other hand, was a total carb whore. I ate so much. So, so much. We're talking 5000+ calories every day from whatever source their was. Smashing down energy drinks, eating haribo - quite literally anything, the sweeter the better. I just couldn't believe the difference between us. During our ride to Turkey, where you often had extensive time to ponder ones thoughts, I concluded that it was purely down to the fact that Simon was older than me and I've accepted as a fact that the metabolism slows down with age. That was that for me, nothing else to think about. Now that the 2016 edition is underway and riders are making it to the finish line in Cannakale as I write this my curiosity piqued again around the nutrition.

In ultra endurance cycling time spent off the bike is time spent loosing the race. Obviously you need some level of sleep to function. I know I do. But in analysis after the race I spent an awful lot of time each day faffing about. While I've not read Simon's blog I'm sure it's mentioned as it drove him crazy! If I could reduce time spent off the bike looking around shops, queuing up to pay or waiting in a restaurant for food then I could either increase my time on the bike or increase my sleep (and recovery) time - or both. That's a win in my book, more miles covered and better rested for the next day.

Now another thing that was a factor was leg freshness. Obviously riding 4250km in one hit isn't going to leave you ready to get a PB on your local TT but was there anything that could be done to maintain a better standard of leg freshness? Hmm. They (the internet) says that fueling your muscles through converting lipids for energy is a "cleaner" burning fuel than using carbs which causes less muscle fatigue and less by products that the body has to deal with. Ok, sounds good.

So I started doing some research. I found that the internet is full of "keto diet" information but you have to look past that for the information on ketosis - which is the end goal.

The keto diet is very simple. Here's where your daily intake of calories needs to come from:

70% from fats (oils, animal fats, vegetable fats etc)
25% from protein (whatever source, to keep your muscles maintained)
5% from carbs with less than 20g of net carbs consumed*

*net carbs is the carbs you've consumed minus dietary fiber.

Now, everything you read has alternative takes on how to achieve that but the reality is that ketosis is a change your body makes because it isn't receiving carbs. You don't need to have a fat heavy diet to achieve it. Just starve yourself of carbs.

As an ultra endurance athlete I'm known for getting stuck into things and seeing them through so I ditched carbs from my diet on 25/07/2016 and have had less than 20g of carbs every day since then.

Withdrawal

They said you're body isn't going to like it, well I didn't find it too bad. Yes I had headaches and a couple of sleepless nights while I was adapting to it - but if you believe the web it was going to be like giving up heroin. Maybe I'm lucky, maybe that's there way of managing peoples expectations so they stick to the diet. Who knows. Physically it wasn't an issue, mentally it was. Meal times feel very odd for the first week while you adapt. I don't think I've ever bought cream in my life but there I am, making scrambled eggs with chorizo and double cream for the worlds most decadent breakfast, on a Thursday. Where's the toast? What about a bowl of cereal? Nope - that was the hard adaptation.

Now they say that signs that you're in ketosis are a sudden rush of energy and the smell of acetone on your breath (this is a side product of your body metabolising fat) and that this usually kicks in after 3 days. Well it took me 5 and boy did I get some energy. I managed a bike ride, a dog walk, a surf, a run including hill repeats and another dog walk all on that day. All after eating a couple of pieces of bacon and some cheese, oh and a celery stick. It was incredible. I hate running but I had so much energy I had to do something. My mother in law was sniffing at the dinner table and I asked what she could smell - "nail polish remover" she replies - well there we go. We're in ketosis. Boom.

This foray into the world of fat burning was while I was a two week holiday in the West Country, naturally I'd brought my bike with me. Let's see how this works on the bike.

>First ride, a short loop of 20 miles with 2000 ft of climbing in - Cornwall doesn't do flat! I learnt that if you get out the saddle, you won't recover. You know those hills where you maintain speed from the descent and then jump out the saddle to power the short distance to get over the top. Nope. Not anymore mate. You engage the granny ring, sit down a spin and do your best to stay out the red.

>Round 2, same sort of distance and elevation. Rolled out of the house and was greeted by legs that were like jelly and full of lactic acid. I hope this passes, it was like starting a ride feeling like you'd just done a warp speed 300km audax the day before. Ouch.

>Out again, devised a 12mile loop with 1000ft of climbing that I was going to repeat over a few days to track my performance. Still got dead legs. 57:34 was the time for the loop. Benchmark.

>Re-did the loop the next day - this time staying within what I knew would work - seated all the way round (even on the % climbs) and heartrate under 170. For reference my FTHR is 182 and my max HR is 202 if that means anything to you. Not bad. 51:52 - 5:42 shorter than the day before. Getting the hang of this.

>Did the loop a few more times over the coming days and managed to consistently reduce my time. It's a weird mindset. Zone 2 is your friend. Best time around the loop - 50:34. That was 9 days into the diet so my body was 100% purged of carbs and using fats for energy. Not bad for a hilly parcours like that, even if I say so myself.

>First "long" ride. Long is a relative term. Bearing in mind I'd done between 10 and 20 mile rides up to this point I decided to set off on an out and back to Mawgan Porth. Firstly let me tell you about what a beautiful ride that was, have a look at my strava to see where I went. Now - this was a ride of 40 miles with 4000ft of climbing. Most people would call that challenging. I set off with a small bidon of water, about 250ml, and a single Pepperami. For a 3 hour ride with no carbs you'd expect to bonk, right? Well I was pretty nervous - was what I was reading on the internet true, would I make it? I got about 2 hours in after relentless Cornish hills and I was thinking - here we go - I'm going to start feeling light headed and need to feed. That never came. I got to Mawgan Porth, ate my Pepperami and turned around and rode back. I felt fresh when I got back in and didn't feel hungry in the slightest. Result.

>Now here comes the real test. My hand was forced on 09/08/2016. The car I'd driven to Cornwall had decided to break down and the loan car didn't have a towbar so I couldn't put my bike rack on it. Not fancying leaving my bike on the rack in a yard somewhere for an unknown amount of time with unkownn people having access to it I did what any normal person would do. Sat on the computer and worked out the route home. The Mrs can drive the kids home and I'll bash them miles out on the bike. With no carbs. For 225miles. In one go.

Preparing the bike the evening before felt peculiar. Usually on big rides I'll have baked some flapjack and had the obligatory bag of jelly babies stuffed somewhere. I had none of that. Here's the nutrition for the days cycling.

Breakfast - 3 rashers of bacon

Brunch (to be consumed after 80kms) - 1 rasher of bacon and a cheese string

Lunch (to be consumed after 160kms) - 1 rasher of bacon and a cheese string

Tea (to be consumed after 240kms) - 1 rasher of bacon and a Pepperami

Dinner (to be consumed after 320kms) - 1 Pepperami

Not being funny but that stuck the fear of God into me. It was going to go wrong, surely? I had a bail out plan of a bag of mixed nuts stuffed in my jersey pocket.

Off I went at 4.30am on my merry way back to Surrey. I got to my brunch stop, munched what i had prepared. No problems. Got to lunch, no problems. Tea, all good. Dinner - yup totally fine and then rolled in at 21.30 at mine. Not a single carb was consumed that day and Strava suggests I burnt 8000 calories. Going to go out on a limb and say that 6 rashers of bacon, 2 Pepperamis and a couple of cheesestrings (while hardly healthy options) aren't even close to being 8000 kcals. Where did the energy come from then. Must have come from somewhere. Looks like the proof is in the pudding. Ketosis works.

Here's my thoughts about being in Ketosis.

Does it allow an endurance cyclist to cover extensive distances without much in the way of fuel? Yes, definitly. In fact I only ate as my stomach feels weird empty - not because my brain told me I needed it.

Did my legs feel fresher at the end of the ride. Absolutely, I honestly was not fatigued at all. And I really mean that. The only thing I noticed was that I was sleepy tired from it being a long day. I could have happily cycled back the next day.

Does it reduce your stopping time? Absolutely. I rode for 16 hours and spent another 1 stopped. On anaylsis I only spent 26 minutes actually stopped. The rest is made up of waiting at traffic lights or stopped in traffic etc. For comparison I rode an identical distance 4 weeks ago fully carbed up and spent 4 hours stopped. Reducing this by almost 90% is fantastic - that means I would have either 3h30m more riding time or more sleep time.

It's called a diet, did you do it to loose weight? I've been asked that by pretty much everyone I've told about me trialing this. Well I'm honestly not bothered about loosing weight. Naturally almost everyone has some weight that could be lost but as I'm pretty average weight that wasn't my aim for this diet. When I got on the scales after returning from Cornwall I discovered that I'd lost close to 7kgs (in 16 days) which is a pretty handy side effect. I understand that carb stores in your body help to store water so eliminating carbs reduces your water retention so some of that will be from having less water in my body.

Has my sprint come back? No. Hell no. 

Does the lactic acid, jelly legs feeling subside? Yes - you just need to persevere. Keep at it!

Can I ride out the saddle? Sort of. I can do about 4 pedal revolutions at any time without feeling like I'm going to collapse. I've used this to change position on the bike or crest small hills.

My conclusion as to whether ketosis is a friend of the long distance cyclist. Yes. 100% yes. I actually enjoyed the ride far more than i would usually as my legs didn't ache. I didn't get the highs and lows you get with sugary products. If I ran out of food mid ride and couldn't get more I now know that I'll be fine (as long as I've got water). If you're into distance cycling and wanted to look at your fueling strategy I'd suggest you seriously consider ketosis. Obviously check with a doctor to make sure this is suitable for you.

I would not recommend doing this long term though. While I'm no nutritionist I'm guessing that an almost total absence of vegetables and literally no fruits isn't going to do your vitamin intake any good. Maybe look at spending a few weeks in ketosis to help you complete a long event or loose some weight or whatever it is you're trying to achieve and then revert back to your regular, more balanced diet.

If you've read this far, cheers and I'll see you on the road some time!