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MTB season begins

Written by Christopher Kelly

March 13, 2014

It's been 7 weeks since I started the great ketogenic mountain biker experiment and disappointingly my blood ketones are still hovering in the 0.5-1mmol/L range. I'd have liked to have seen 2.0 by now. Luckily, help was on hand in the form of Prototype Nutrition KetoForce which I choked down about 10 minutes before the start. Yes it really works that fast! Yes it tastes like sweat! This was on top of the chalky Superstarch mixed with a tablespoon of Upgraded Brain Octane some one hour earlier. Well, at least you know I'm not consuming this stuff as some sort of treat.

The start of round three of the Monterey based CCCX series went off ridiculously hard and I soon found myself behind about 20 riders of all shapes and sizes. Single speeds, big Camelbaks (for a 90 minute race!) you name it, it was in front. Were my worst fears being confounded? Nope, everyone blew up within half a lap, and although I didn't know it at the time, I was soon leading out the chase group behind national elite champion Stephen Ettinger.

Boy was that course was fun! Moist hard packed sand and limitless traction all round. I spent much more time than was wise towing the chase group round and in the end I was out sprinted by pretty much everyone to finish 5th. Sprinting has never been my forte and I’m really looking forward to competing on some upcoming big climbs.

Winding down after the end of a race (or any stressful event) is really important. Adrenaline is gone in seconds but the half-life of cortisol is hours. I knock that back down by taking 1 capsule of Enerphos the moment I finish and then go for a 15 minute spin. I wait at least another 30 minutes before eating to let the blood supply return to the GI tract. 10g of the amino acid supplement MAP has also proved very fruitful in shortening recovery time. Later when I get home I’ll spend a few minutes performing some mindfulness of breathing exercises whilst tracking my heart rate variability.

Don't worry, I don't solely run on supplements. While I have accepted their necessity for meeting my overall nutritional needs, I'm pretty serious about pre and post race nutrition too.  During this keto experiment, that looks something like bone broth with three egg yolks and a bulletproof cacao tea for breakfast, and left over cilantro lime pork roast after the race.  Dinner was a little while later and rounded out the day with roast chicken with greens, mushrooms, and broccoli. All in all a pretty good fat adapted day!

Many thanks to Steve Anderson for the photos.