Fat adaptation theory is still a low carb fantasy

So why doesn’t Phinney mention any of this? There are two possibilities, neither of which are particularly reassuring:

–He is earnestly ignorant about Olson’s true diet/supplement strategies, in which instance he really needs to get more familiar with the subjects of his case studies before making grand pronouncements about their nutritional habits, or;

–He knew full well about Olson’s in-race carbohydrate intake, but simply chose to ignore it because it doesn’t conform to his low-carb dogma and the fat adaptation tune he’s become so fond of signing.

If the latter is in fact the case, it might explain why Phinney feels compelled to say things like “[Olson used] relatively little of what people call in-race calories”. If called out on his highly questionable claims, this would allow Phinney the escape route of claiming that while fat adaptation didn’t completely alleviate Olson’s needs for in-race carbs, it allowed him to eat a lot less than other athletes. What the other athletes ate is a matter of pure speculation for which Phinney provides no evidence, but if Olson’s carb intake during the Western State was similar to that of the Bandera 100, it was already near the upper limit of official guidelines – guidelines crafted for high-carbohydrate athletes.

This line of rationalization would also conflict with Phinney’s fondness for citing his zero-carb study with cyclists as proof that a 0% carb diet causes such thorough fat adaptation that endurance activity does not suffer.

If that’s true, why does someone like Olson need to take in any carbs at all during a race?