the seven P’s plus one

There’s an old British army adage that’s called the Seven Ps. The seven Ps stand for Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. I guess the seven Ps are useful for both battle and bicycling.

To those seven Ps I will add one more. Pasta. What does pasta have to do with getting ready for battle? Well, in my experience pasta is the best meal the night before a bike ride.

As part of my proper preparation I loaded up my bento box and aqua rack so I can have the energy and hydration I need for a longer ride. In truth all this stuff is not really necessary for a century ride, but it comes in handy for long training rides in hot weather.

This weekend’s training ride was to Cantelow. If you ride the loop from my house in Davis it’s about 65 miles round trip. There’s a couple of other hills besides Cantelow in the area, but Cantelow is the safest and the easiest to ride as a loop, so pretty much everyone trains out there. Today there were a ton of people out there.

Next weekend is the Strawberry Fields century, my first for the year. I didn’t realize until recently, but it’s a pretty tough ride, the climb towards the beginning of the ride is longer and higher than on almost every ride I’ve done. So did I do the proper planning and preparation for this ride? Probably not. But let’s hope it’s not a piss poor performance.

Things I’m thankful for:

• Training and century riding buddies
• Steady Eddy’s – We actually ate there twice today…
• Gatorade – This is about the time of year when I start drinking it in bulk during rides — almost one gallon today… I’m glad Target sells it in powdered form.
• Hammer Endurolytes (electrolyte pills) – They seem to work well to fight off leg cramps