All posts by Mike

To The Sea! And maybe Ketones really do work.

Ride reports (not Tu/Th), Tdf trip planning

We had put in place to ride to the coast so many times recently, and ditched out as we saw heavy coastal fog and had little desire to ride in the cold. This is Summer, after all. And even before Summer hit, it just seemed a bit strange to ride into cold fog when it was 75 degrees on the bay side of the hills.

But after watching the weather forecast update its Sunday forecast each day, each time adding a degree so what started out at 62 for Pescadero finally landed at 66, this was finally going to be the day. No chickening out. And looking at Strava, more chickening-out than I’d thought; the last time we did the full Pescadero/San Gregorio/Tunitas loop was March 17th!

Old LaHonda wasn’t pretty; Kevin rode away from me pretty quickly, but got held up by the stop light, allowing me to catch up…just barely. The light turned green very shortly after. A quick stop on the other side to view the coast, and yes, there was a bit of fog at the coast but it wasn’t the thick marine layer we’d seen so much of recently. All systems go!

While Kevin had an easy time up Old LaHonda, he began to struggle a bit on Haskins. Had to wait up for him a couple times. After that, I even pulled into the wind, something I haven’t felt comfortable doing for a while, thinking I needed to save strength so I could keep Kevin in sight for at least a few minutes on the climbs.

Pescadero. Their usual excellent Chicken Club sandwich (split between us), a gigantic and thick double-chocolate chocolate-chip cookie, coke for Kevin, Mtn Dew for me and… each of us downed a Ketone bottle. Vial might be closer to the truth; think it’s only 2 ounces, but those 2 ounces pack one heck of a terrible-tasting punch.

Kevin ate the entire cookie while I just ate maybe 1/4 of mine, not wanting to go into a food coma as we left Pescadero. And I think that’s what happened to Kevin; I definitely had the upper hand the rest of the ride, which is very unusual. Could also be that I respond better to Ketones than Kevin. The three Stage Road bumps all found me feeling pretty good, and plenty of times on Tunitas where I felt like I could actually ride with a bit of power when I wanted to. Didn’t ditch Kevin though; it wouldn’t be a good thing if he had a seizure without me knowing about it, especially if he was behind me.

Overall a nice ride, and feeling like I will survive the French Alps in a few weeks. Happy about my weight too, coming down to 161.5. My plan was to get to 161 on a day I’m not riding, and I’m getting closer to that than I thought I would. But before I could think it was time to celebrate, my phone brings up a “5 years ago today” memory. It’s a picture of our bathroom scale, showing 156 lbs. Not going to happen, but still, where I am is progress.

Are Ketones the solutions to Life, The Universe, and Everything?

Personal stuff, Tdf trip planning


As most know, Kevin has epilepsy, and has been getting an increasing number of seizures lately at work, and occasionally elsewhere. Thankfully, he has about 20 seconds warning before they hit… otherwise, riding a bike would be a bit too exciting. It’s already bad enough when he has a seizure out on the road, and I’ve got him flat on his back, looking like he’s in a bad way, maybe people thinking he crashed and/or got run over. Gets old having to explain to people he’s fine, he’ll be back on his bike in a couple minutes. But you also start thinking about all the people who just fly by when it looks like someone’s in real trouble.

He’s tried various different meds over the years, and even has a computer implanted (or rather, planted) on top of his brain. Literally. As in, saw the top of your skull off, stick in a computer, then stitch everything back together. But even with all that, he’s still getting seizures.

Traditionally, for reasons unexplained, he has very, very few seizures in France. So we’re hoping the upcoming trip might put them on pause for a while, but it’s also possible that since this is going to be a very short and intense trip, it might not be optimal for seizures this time.

But there is a plan B. There’s this crazy, impossible-to-follow diet, call Ketogenic, that tricks your body into thinking you’re starving and changes brain chemistry in a way to reduces seizures. OK, we ruled it out previously because it was so tough to stick to, but now, you can get exogenous Ketones (basically ingest ketones directly into the body instead of processing them through food). And if you work hard enough at the research, you can find stuff from 2019 showing that exogenous ketones work to reduce seizures, just like the ketogenic diet does. What hadn’t happened, yet, was proof that ketones were safe to take in that fashion.

That was then, this is now. Ketones have also been shown to improve athletic endurance and speed… finding their way into… bike racing! And since they’re (so far) legal, they’ve become quite a big thing, and have proven themselves safe.

So guess what Kevin’s going to be on shortly? Praying that it works! Only downside is, if it makes him even faster…