Kreb's Cycle for Runners

Having listened a few times to this catchy song after reading this interesting NPR article I copied from Wikipedia a few key Kreb's cycle facts, which we marathon runners need to know a few things about!

Overview of the citric acid cycle

The citric acid cycle — also known as the tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA cycle), the Krebs cycle, or recently in certain former Soviet Bloc countries the Szent-Györgyi-Krebs cycle^[1][2] — is a series of enzyme-catalysed chemical reactions, which is of central importance in all living cells, especially those that use oxygen as part of cellular respiration. In eukaryotic cells, the citric acid cycle occurs in the matrix of the mitochondrion.
In aerobic organisms, the citric acid cycle is part of a metabolic pathway involved in the chemical conversion of carbohydrates, fats and proteins into carbon dioxide and water to generate a form of usable energy. Other relevant reactions in the pathway include those in glycolysis and pyruvate oxidation before the citric acid cycle, and oxidative phosphorylation after it. In addition, it provides precursors for many compounds including some amino acids and is therefore functional even in cells performing fermentation. Its centrality to many paths of biosynthesis suggest that it was one of the earliest formed parts of the cellular metabolic processes, and may have formed abiogenically.^[3]
The components and reactions of the citric acid cycle were established in the 1930s by seminal work from the Nobel laureates Albert Szent-Györgyi and Hans Adolf Krebs.

A simplified view of the process

• The citric acid cycle begins with the transfer of a two-carbon acetyl group from acetyl-CoA to the four-carbon acceptor compound (oxaloacetate) to form a six-carbon compound (citrate).
• The citrate then goes through a series of chemical transformations, losing two carboxyl groups as CO₂. The carbons lost as CO₂ originate from what was oxaloacetate, not directly from acetyl-CoA. The carbons donated by acetyl-CoA become part of the oxaloacetate carbon backbone after the first turn of the citric acid cycle. Loss of the acetyl-CoA-donated carbons as CO₂ requires several turns of the citric acid cycle. However, because of the role of the citric acid cycle in anabolism, they may not be lost, since many TCA cycle intermediates are also used as precursors for the biosynthesis of other molecules.^[4]
• Most of the energy made available by the oxidative steps of the cycle is transferred as energy-rich electrons to NAD⁺, forming NADH. For each acetyl group that enters the citric acid cycle, three molecules of NADH are produced.
• Electrons are also transferred to the electron acceptor Q, forming QH₂.
• At the end of each cycle, the four-carbon oxaloacetate has been regenerated, and the cycle continues.