Sticking with the proctology theme, I could have avoided that proctoscope by saying “sufficiently fat-adapted.” I hope that helps! The point being that individuals, due to both genetic inheritance and training, have different capacities for using our essentially unlimited stores of fat as fuel. I use carbs on long rides because I want to go hard. Some fast people burn mostly carbs because of genetics. Some people cannot become ketogenic no matter how you restrict carbs–they just get really sick. And some athletes need carbs but can’t digest solid food very well during exercise–if at all. My good (late) friend Dr. Ann Grandjean, a giant figure in sports nutrition, conducted ground-breaking experiments on sports digestion, showing that individual capacities for digestion just before, during, and after hard physical activity, ranged from complete digestion to zero. Some athletes retained almost everything in a pre-event meal when contents were studied after the event. Almost zero digestion. Some athletes had completely digested the meal BEFORE the event. So, whereas some athletes definitely need to learn how to eat on the bike, as you suggest, some will only be hampered by eating solid food–that’s where liquids can really help. Athletes vary. Greatly. I think we all understand that on some level, but many don’t understand how greatly they can vary and still perform at very high levels. I could tell you stories about US National Team members that most wouldn’t believe–it was hard to understand or explain how they supported high levels of performance based on their habits, and yet they did. Dr. Ann was great at that–she simply did experiments on real athletes. Humans are amazing. On some level, we’re all n’s of 1.
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