Refining the system

In cycling, ya gotta have a system.  That is, it’s important to know, especially when riding with a group, what things you want to do the night before, and what you want to do in the morning.  You want to know what you’ll want to drink, and what you’ll want to eat, and how much, and when.  And, it’s not only important to have a system, but it’s also important to be able to adapt that system to changing conditions.  For example, if you’re going long in the summer, that will require way different food and drink than if you’re going short in cooler weather.  So ya gotta have a system.

Brenda has developed a system that works pretty well for her as far as energy on the bike.  Unfortunately it’s very high in simple sugars, which is non-preferred from a nutrition point of view.   So she’s been working on refining it a little—adding in a little more protein and taking out some of the sugar.  This morning, though, we got kind of a late start so we were kind of hurried getting out the door.  She got her protein mixed up ok, but the only thing she had for carbs was just a box of raisins.  We weren’t really thinking about the whole system very much because we were just going out to do a short, 30-mile ride with some pretty close friends.  But the lack of any quick-energy stuff, coupled with a hilly, windy ride, resulted in a serious bonk for her with about 5 or 10 miles to go.  One time I looked back and saw her stuffing as many of those raisins in her mouth as would fit, but by that time it was too little, too late.  Now, typically when you bonk (aka “hit the wall”) that’s it—your day is pretty much done.  It’s hard to recover from that.  But I’ve seen her down a gel pack an in just a few minutes of pedaling she’s good to go again.  But today?  No gel pack.  Ok, note to ourselves—always keep a couple of gel packs in the car for those mornings when we’re too rushed to remember everything. 

So that’s part of our new system—always take at least one gel pack no matter how short we’re going, and always keep some extras in the car.  But we’ll continue to refine it.  Heck, I’ve been riding for more than 10 years, and I’m still making changes to my system.  It’s one of the small challenges of cycling.  And one of the reasons why it never gets old.