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Lactate, Lactic Acid and Acidosis

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With respect to exercise, what do you think of when I say, “Lactic Acid?” Legs burning? Acidosis? Horrible stuff that slows me down? Lactic acid and lactate typically get a bad rap from athletes, but what if I said that rather than slowing you down, lactate production enables high-intensity exercise? Well, it does. Lactate vs. Lactic Acid      First, let’s discuss the compound itself. Lactate is not lactic acid. Lactate is a carboxylate, whereas lactic acid is a carboxylic acid. This means the carboxyl group of the lactate molecule is deprotonated and cannot contribute further to acidosis.  The image below shows the difference between the two molecule types.      The reason lactate does not exist as it's protonated acid form in the body is because the pKa of lactate is a low 3.9. This means is that in a solution with a pH higher than 3.9, the compound will exist as the deprotonated carboxylate, lactate.  As shown bel...
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Fractional Utilization, Low Carbohydrate Diets and Running Performance

Fractional utilization refers to the fraction of VO2max that an athlete sustains during an event. It varies between events and between athletes. An athlete can sustain a greater percentage of VO2max for a shorter duration (5000m vs. 10,000m). Fractional utilization is sometimes referred to as lactate threshold. While the concepts are related, they are not the same. Consider an athlete with a VO2max of 70 ml/kg/min: If we find that he can average 90% of VO2max over the course of a 5000m run, he averages 63.0 ml/kg/min for the race. If he averages 86% of VO2max during a 10,000m run, he averages 60.2 ml/kg/min. Athletes may train for years, increasing fractional utilization. By increasing fractional utilization, an athlete will be able to complete a distance at a greater percentage of VO2max. For example, if that same athlete increases his fractional utilization during the 5000m to 93%, he can now average 65.1 ml/kg/min. That 2.1 ml/kg/min increase in utilization means more O2 is cons...
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Death March Revival ITT Ride Report

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 I don't know what got into me Last year my wife, Courtney, rode all three of Tennessee Gravel's  individual time trial (ITT) routes. And she really enjoyed it. But I had very little interest in trying to ride these long, hard routes as fast as possible - all by myself. I saw Chad Hungerford set the fastest known time (FKT) on the Death March Revival (DMR) route last May at 7 hours 41 minutes and I thought, "that looks miserable." I had a hard time imagining putting forth a constant effort, suffering for 7+ hours over these rough roads and long climbs. That said, I did ride the DMR route last May - but I rode it with Courtney and a few friends. It was a long day out at a casual pace, completing the loop in about 11 hours. And that was really enjoyable. It wasn't super exciting - I might rather spend my time ripping down some singletrack, but it was a beautiful day through my favorite mountains. I had also ridden most of the route (excluding the Big Frog loop) with...
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