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1. Stoner - Member

   I ride SS on the Malverns. I try and find the easiest way up, but that does still involve a fair bit of honking. Ive been riding a lot since summer, 3-5 times a week, getting nice and strong.

   I started iDieting 8wks ago.

   Initially it was tricky fighting the absence of carbs. But my body seems to be improving at getting fuel from elsewhere.

   But the other night I noticed that I hadnt recently suffered from lactic acid burn on the climbs. When I used to grind to a halt it was usually due to lactic burn. I admit Im attacking harder hills (and they are pretty tough SS ones round here) but it's not lactic that's stopping me but just out and out running out of grunt.

   So what's happening? Is my aerobic ability improving so Im hitting the power threshold before the lactic one? Ive never been aerobically as good as my anaerobic ability before so probably not familiar with it....

   or is it a fuel problem?

   ta.

   Posted 4 months ago #
2. Andy_Baz - Member

   This isn't my area of expertise so I'm happy to be corrected, but I would say this is most likely to be a lack of fuel problem. Your body stores energy for rapid access as liver and muscle glycogen which is a long chain carbohydrate synthesised in the body from glucose and broken back down to glucose in response to low blood sugar. Glucose comes from both simple sugars and starches. If you're on a low carb diet your glycogen stores are likely to be low and therefore more rapidly depleted. In the absence of glucose the body breaks down other substrates one of which is muscle protein which provides a more ready source of energy than body fat (expect brown fat which adults don't have a lot of).
   I would suggest that the lack of lactic burn you've experienced is due to the fact that you run out of energy substrate before you reach your anaerobic threshold.

   I think....

   Posted 4 months ago #
3. Stoner - Member

   Andy, that's really useful, thanks.
   I thought it odd that I was finding tough climbs less painful, but I wasnt necessarily cleaning them better. Which seemed counter-intuitive.

   Posted 4 months ago #
4. overthehill - Member

   - wot andy sed.

   Posted 4 months ago #
5. Stoner - Member

   OK, so what's the solution? I remember iDave mentioning taking on carbs if exercising for more than two hours or something, but I usually only ride 1 to 1.5 hrs a night - admittedly a bit hard and grunty being an SS on Malvern, not much scope for bimbling.

   Posted 4 months ago #
6. Elfinsafety - Member

   OK, so what's the solution?

   Eat more carbs, innit?

   I'm about to have rice and meat.

   Posted 4 months ago #
7. CaptainFlashheart - Member

   OK, so what's the solution?

   Gears!

   Posted 4 months ago #
8. Stoner - Member

   OK, so what's the solution?

   apart from gears and pasta, smartarses!

   Posted 4 months ago #
9. CaptainFlashheart - Member

   Beer?

   More an invitation than a suggestion...Cask reopens tomorrow.... a rather intriguing Thornbridge aged in sherry casks among the early year highlights I gather. It own over the next couple of weeks?
   .

   Posted 4 months ago #
10. oldnpastit - Member

    Embrace the fat!

    Posted 4 months ago #
11. StefMcDef - Member

    Stoner - Member

    OK, so what's the solution? I remember iDave mentioning taking on carbs if exercising for more than two hours or something, but I usually only ride 1 to 1.5 hrs a night - admittedly a bit hard and grunty being an SS on Malvern, not much scope for bimbling.

    Energy gel sachet mid-ride?

    Remember seriously running out of "grunt" on a climb in the summer, two or three weeks after I had started iDieting and was sticking to it fairly rigorously. Was on a group ride and started making a breakaway - from the wrong end of the group.

    Someone offered me an energy gel sachet and ten minutes later the grunt had returned - and I didn't feel like I'd contravened any of the iron laws of the iDiet, since it was an in-ride refuel and I was still expending more calories than I was taking in.

    Posted 4 months ago #
12. Stoner - Member

    Beer?

    I ride from pub to pub. Beer carbs are covered
    Will let you know when Im able to get to The Cask one night.

    OK, will go for carb gels. I love torq ones, they work brilliantly, but I try and save them for big days out rather than evening rides. Idave will shoot me though eh?

    Posted 4 months ago #
13. iDave - Member

    Sorry you all must be on about a different iDiet as the iDave one isn't a low carb one. It's just different carbs.

    I can't really make any firm diagnosis on one experience in one ride. It could have been muscles not recovered from something else. All sorts of possibles.

    Also, the diet, allows for taking on simple carbs during and after long rides.

    Bear in mind it was put out there for hefty chaps on STW who weren't exactly 'active'.....

    Posted 4 months ago #
14. Stoner - Member

    taking on simple carbs during and after long rides.

    that may cover it. I guess compounding some tough rides might have depleted reserves a bit.

    OK, so to help me understand what things feel like, what is it that causes the lactic burn if it isnt running out of fuel?

    PS - sorry if I sound a bit of a tard over all of this, I genuinely have never ever paid the slightest attention to the details of "fitness" despite Mrs S being a marathon-running, nationally-ranked run-junky. I've just been doing a lot more riding than Ive ever done in the past over the last 6 months, and pretty hard too, and trying the iDiet to drop from 95 to 85Kg (6'4")

    Posted 4 months ago #
15. iDave - Member

    lactate is used as a fuel, especially by heart muscle. it's not the bad guy

    sometimes the brain gets a bit nancy and wants to protect you from damage, so it allows you to feel the sensation of fatigue and discomfort to make you reduce the intensity. or, you could have some un-repaired muscle damage from a previous ride or even manual work using the legs (ie planting a million willow saplings etc)

    I know enough to know that I don't know for sure what caused the sensation you experienced.

    Any ride over 80 mins, can be carb'd, during and after, though in time it can be done on carb stores and fat.

    EDIT - I'm aware of Mrs Stoners running ability, and also actually met her about business stuff about 6 years ago. I think you buggered off to the pub to leave us discussing Scandinavian venture capital. And we're all 'tards about something.

    Posted 4 months ago #
16. Stoner - Member

    so it allows you to feel the sensation of fatigue and discomfort to make you reduce the intensity

    does improving your fitness levels reduce your brain's nancy tendencies or do you change physically to produce less lactic acid?

    Posted 4 months ago #
17. Stoner - Member

    and also actually met her about business stuff about 6 years ago

    ooo, intrigued. where did we meet?

    Posted 4 months ago #
18. iDave - Member

    combination of those ^^ and you can also over-ride the brain (google 'tim noakes, central governor' - which is a 'theory' but I believe it offers a good understanding of fatigue)

    i often argue with my brain and discuss how things really are with my legs when on hard rides/races

    met at your house on the steep hill in malvern. I think you were there for about 4 seconds.

    Posted 4 months ago #
19. LabMonkey - Member

    iDave is correct - you don't *feel* the lactate - you feel the hydrogen ions (H+) that are released when lactic acid is dissociated. i.e., the H+ causes a change in intracellular pH - and you feel this change in acid-base status - if - bicarbonate doesn't mop up the free H+.

    Posted 4 months ago #
20. Stoner - Member

    but can you talk your brain out of feeling the burn? I cant. It's very stubborn like that. Or at least it was. I havent had the burn for a few rides. I dont miss it, but it's unnerving.

    Posted 4 months ago #
21. iDave - Member

    hmm, that's odd. I feel the burn on every single ride, in fact I love it and seek it out.

    Posted 4 months ago #
22. Stoner - Member

    LabM - I remember a fascinating conversation with a doctor (english, but in sweden at the time) who waxed lyrical about the brilliance of the Zantac style of heartburn medicines that blocked H+ ion transfer across the gut wall or something.

    Maybe I should drink more yoghurt before a ride?

    Posted 4 months ago #
23. Stoner - Member

    I think you were there for about 4 seconds.

    How odd. Pub must have just opened
    You should come and visit again. We're lower down the hill now.

    EDIT: Ha! Just grilled Mrs S. Def a business meeting from ye olden days, so I would have legged it to leave you guys to it. Im impressed you worked that out. How things move on eh? R's doing really well with her running lately, focussing on Tri for the next 3 years, and fortunately come away from the VC viper pit a bit too

    Posted 4 months ago #
24. Stoner - Member

    A script for the twilight zone: disable the central governor and ride yourself to death....

    Posted 4 months ago #
25. LabMonkey - Member

    Haha - don't get me started on the central governor!

    Posted 4 months ago #
26. iDave - Member

    I had a long chat with Noakes about it once. After he helped Lewis Pugh swim round Cape Horn.

    Its got to the stage where I don't care whether it's 'right or wrong', I just enjoy chatting to 'the governor' about it interfering with my effort at going faster.

    Posted 4 months ago #
27. Stoner - Member

    while you're in here then, what does ischemic mean and how does it come into exercise?

    Posted 4 months ago #
28. iDave - Member

    it just means a decrease in blood supply to tissue - can happen in all sorts of exercise scenarios.

    my favourite term is reactive hyperaemia

    i also like 2,3-Diphosphoglycerate

    Posted 4 months ago #
29. LabMonkey - Member

    I am not really 'here' - I am busy 'working' on something else - I am just flicking back - and, it is a bit too late for a central governor debate.

    But if we are brief, ischemia, in what context?

    I take it as meaning a restriction in blood flow, in the context of exercise?

    Posted 4 months ago #
30. Stoner - Member

    exercise scenarios.

    There's obviously some exercise scenarios in which you really dont want any decrease in blood supply. but it's probably not fatal

    Posted 4 months ago #
31. Stoner - Member

    ischemia

    came up in one of the many anti-central governor papers that google threw up before getting to Noakes

    Posted 4 months ago #
32. LabMonkey - Member

    If you reduce blood supply to the brain it could be fatal - but 'something else' would make you stop exercise well before the brain has to intervene - for example a reduction in intramuscular phosphocreatine, the accumulation of metabolites (H+, ADP, Pi, H2PO4 etc) or an intolerable change in acid-base status.

    Oh god... what are we starting here?!

    Posted 4 months ago #
33. Stoner - Member

    I was thinking of brewer's droop, but you lab monkies can keep going with the science

    Posted 4 months ago #
34. Andy_Baz - Member

    Ischaemia refers to a lack of oxygen supply to an organ, such as a muscle, and can occur even with a good blood supply e.g. due to anaemia or lack of oxygen being taken up into the blood in the lungs. Ischaemia can be reversible but will ultimately progress to permanent tissue damage which can be fatal depending on the organ concerned.

    Posted 4 months ago #
35. LabMonkey - Member

    Stoner - you made me smile! cheers.

    Posted 4 months ago #

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