Originally Posted by
Seattle Forrest
For what it's worth, Heather "Anish" Anderson was a vegan when she set the unsupported FKT (fastest known time) on the Pacific Crest Trail. I don't remember the exact numbers, but she basically walked 50 miles a day with 5k elevation gain and loss every day for two months. I think she's the only person ever to FKT the Triple Crown.
hmm yeah,, those guys are impressive, I couldn't do that.
But honeslty I don't really follow the "ultra endurace" scenes, and the only reason why I look it up is because in almost every discussion about diet, nutrition, and athletic performance,.. there is ALWAYS someone(s) from the keto world chiming in about how being fat-adapted (whatever that means) and ketosis would do very well in ultra endurance events,.. it's as if their claim to athletic legitimacy is ultra endurance.. and in the process they muddle the parameters of "athletic performance", talk about moving the athletic performance goal post. But ok, when I look up the ultra scenes, I find that in fact most of the fastest people there are in fact either on a high carb diet, some mix diet, or completely vegans,.. and those who are on the keto diet.. would need a relatively huge injection of carbohydrates during their competitive run. Yeah, keto this, keto that,.. then carbs for competitive runs. So why even bother with keto when vegans and non-keto people have run the Appalachian Trail and others similar feats at impressive times equating or surpassing most guys on keto diet? Why bother with keto and lose the high intensity performance part of life? not to mention following a very restrictive diet?
The bottomline is very simple, humans have evolved with 2 very sophisticated ways of metabolizing fuels (ie, fat and carbohydrate metabolism pathways), if you take away any of those fuel sources, then performance is bound to be affected. This is all over the literature: no carbs, no performance. No human population has been shown to be in ketosis, not the Eskimos, not the Maasai, no one. But apparently in the Western Hemisphere, there is an enclave of ketosis from mostly rich well-to-do white'ish middle-ish class? (with research sponsored by the meat and dairy associations). For the rest of the world, carbohydrates are still the preferred choice of food (for many reasons, one of which is economic).
I personally don't like to use the ultra events in my discussions of athletic performance though. Reason is when using such events, I would have to look at the breadth of competition, and to be honest, competitions in these events are almost nonexisting, and anyone, you and I, all know that when competition is lacking, then so is the quality of performance we see from it. It sounds like i'm diminishing the achievements of participants in these events, which I'm not. Don't like to be accused of moving the athletic performance goal post!