Ya, thought was called aerobic respiration (one glucose + 6 oxygen = 6 water + 6 CO2 + 38 ATP).
I donāt have the reactions in front of me, but i remember that fatty acid oxidation requires another enzymatic step or two which is why it is slower. I donāt think it requires significantly more oxygen than using pyruvate, but eventually will enter the krebs cycle and the majority of the steps are the same.
Having a high vlamax will lower your fractional utilization of vo2 max. This is the scenario where two people with different vo2 max values can have the same threshold.
Vlamax is a measure of your glycolytic abilities, aerobic respiration of carbohydrates cant begin until the anaerobic process produces lactate which is converted to pyruvate and enters the krebs cycle.
With a vlamax of .35, you donāt produce a lot of lactate, your threshold looks to be in the standard 3 to 4 mmol range and vo2 efforts around 12. Your peak lactate reading was from a maximal effort. Someone with a high vlamax would be above 20 for that 3 minute best effort.
This is the only bookmark I could find while hanging out at the lake and having an adult beverage:
Thought I had something more definitive, source: http://www.namrata.co/fats-burn-in-the-flame-of-carbohydrates/
2 Likes
I thought pyruvate can also be metabolized directly via the Krebs cycle when sufficient oxygen present, without any lactate production?
Read the last ~20 posts, started googling all the words I didnāt understand (most of them), decided to go for a bike ride instead!
11 Likes
I mis-spoke a bit, as there will be some pyruvate that is not reduced to lactate and will enter the krebs cycle directly, but at what intensity is lactate still at baseline? Even at LT1, lactate has increased about 1 mmol above baseline. However, producing pyruvate from glucose is still an anaerobic process and where all of the anaerobic energy from glycolysis comes from. If pyruvate isnāt then reduced to lactate, you are not regenerating NAD+, which is required to produce pyruvate from glucose, so in an equilibrium state, youāre going to be getting both happening.
1 Like
I have been thinking a lot about this, TR and training in general. It seems lots of new coaches want to show off their sports degrees and make sessions super complicated. And then you listen to Seiler and he says body cannot really tell these apart, his phrase was āour bodies are not that sophiscatedā
TR is great, but it also knows its audienceās limitations (in time and attention). It needs to have loads of different sessions which are effectively the same; I remember Chad basically saying that on a podcast - he has no idea of how many different ones he has created
If TR marketed a programme which basically said ride outdoors for 25 hrs, in 6 rides, and 5 of those rides are super easy and one of these rides is mainly easy but has 3*10 min intervals and then repeat this for 12 weeks in a row, TR would not have many subscribersā¦
People would think it offered no āvalueā
The reality is even for the best coaches, the programs are not super complicated - its just doing the work, eating, resting and repeating this day after day after day that brings results
5 Likes
I canāt imagine training for long distance solely on a trainer. I have trouble with getting bored during the first hour. But on to the original question, I am not sure you can avoid eating on a 10h ride if you want to go fast. I occasionally have trouble eating on a long ride and I work on surviving without eating. But it means going slow. For example, I did a 400km brevet this year where I didnāt eat much at all for the final 200km, at one point I felt numb and I was wondering if I could finish. For a randonneur, going slow is not a big deal, but for a racer it is. It seems to me that riding without eating is a good practice, but I have nothing other than anecdote to back that up. But to me, eating is everything during an event. If I can eat, I can ride.
I know faster randonneurs that aim to keep their power below 2/3 FTP. I feel like Iām often far above that. But I think having a higher ftp is a good goal in itself, you want to be able to have the occasional big effort without having a lot of trouble recovering. But my schedule provides plenty of training on long rides, the trick is to fit other types of training in between recovery.
1 Like
I was on the bike for 9h40 today (11h elapsed). I ate minimal food after breakfast beforehand - itās not something I could have handled a few months ago. I was able to do this a few years ago but Iāve detrained that ability. I am not sure itās going to make me faster, though - just limit my need to stop for food (that did make me faster today, to be fair).
2 Likes
Now that i have this clear in my head, itāll make me faster 
Anaerobic Threshold (AnT) is not the same as FTP. AnT is commonly 30 watts lower than estimated FTP. Lactate can stabilize at 4 mmol, 6, 8, 10 etc. Many time crunched athletes can handle high lactate levels but just think how much better one could be with āimprovingā that. The most common issue I see is athletes overestimating FTP with ramp or short tests without lactate and training too hard - strengthening anaerobic contribution. I use lactate INSCYD with athletes and use those training zones assuming we have good test data (accurate power and lactate readings) - the gains I see in AnT, fat utilization and vo2 with disciplined riders are hard to deny. We can still use TR plans but with easier targets. I started using INSCYD so we could get accurate training targets without the need for a full hour TT to establish threshold. WKO4 aligns with INSCYD and gas exchange assuming it has enough data - that 60 min max effort that gets avoided in favor of 8, 20, 30 min tests that usually overestimate threshold.
1 Like
Iām assuming this amount (30W) varies depending on the baseline FTP? Can you convert this into a % - I.e. based on your experience, how much lower (in %) is lactate threshold than FTP measured via a test like the TR ramp test?
There is no chance that I can sustain my TR FTP for one hour. I suppose I should just do an hour test to estimate my lactate threshold, but that sounds like a lot of work 
In my case, the AnT vs FTP was 50w+ (-230 vs 285-293). At the end of build phase, I would feel cooked and my body felt like it was ābuzzingā in the hard workoutsāthe work did not feel right for Leadville 100. Seeing the INSCYD and Lactate test results I think explains thisā¦too much anaerobic contribution. I think I can deal with high lactate levels for a considerable time, but nowhere close to the 11+ hours that I expect Leadville will take.
Now Iām just hoping I can make some significant gains in reducing this ārelianceā and improving fat utilization before the raceāIām 3 weekās into a new coach directed approach.
Good question. I discourage athletes to do the ramp test (any ramp test) since they tend to overestimate.
ā-
% - Iād say ~5%. So 90% of 20 min max power fits more athletes than the 95% in my experience. Zwift races often give a good ftp estimate if looking for motivation for a long one - avg power. WKO4 is spot on if using the test protocol recommended. One issue there is poor pacing on shorter max efforts resulting in lower power than is possible - partly why I started using lactate testing. Experienced (several years of training with power) riders can use power field tests quite accurately.
ā-
To keep things simple for most motivated riders:
If riding at Sweet Spot - thatās probably actually threshold and tempo is actually sweet spot. I prescribe a lot of tempo for athletes trying to raise threshold and use a 85% effort for perceived effort.
ā-
High intensity intervals are max efforts AND be able to get through the workout so a percent of ftp is not used. Some can do 150% for 1 minute. Others 200% or 125%.
ā-
I like TR plans/workouts - I just make sure athletes are not too rigid with power targets as they can be too hard or too easy if using percent of FTP.
1 Like
not necessarily - VLAMAX is a rate of production and 0.35 VLAMAX athletes can hit lactate levels in the 15+ mmol/L range. 0.9 VLAMAX athletes may max out at 13-14 mmol/L.
Thx. Now I wonāt feel too bad if I dial down the intensity of my workouts by a few %.
Out of curiosity, can I ask who did your INSCYD test?
I understand itās a rate metric, as in the higher the number the faster you produce lactate. Someone with a 0.9 VLaMax will end up at roughly 18 mmol after a 20 second maximal effort. When you say top out at 13-14 mmol, what duration/intensity level?