LESSONS FROM LOSS

Webster defines a loss as the failure to win, gain or obtain. Winning, gaining and obtaining is great fun, not winning, gaining or obtaining, not so much! This weekend I planned to ride with friends in a thirty mile charity bicycle ride to benefit a local food pantry. The food pantry got the benefit of my registration fee and I got to learn a lesson from loss. 
The ride was thirty miles and I lasted all of three. It was not so much that I quit as it was that I was finished after just three miles. So much so that I had to call for my wife to pick me and the bicycle up from the side of the road. Now there were the contributing factors of  ninety degree heat and the many hills of southern Indiana.
Or the fact that I took my usual two hour sauna that morning before the ride and did not fully rehydrate or get my core body temperature down. But when I consider the day I am convinced that no matter what the circumstances of the ride I would not have succeeded. 
The lesson that I learned Saturday is the difference between Planning and Preparation. These are mutually exclusive terms. Although I had planned for weeks to ride, I did not prepare for the ride. I should have spent time training in the heat and on the hills. I didn't, consequently I lost. Planning is just not enough, I should have added ACTION to my plan, resulting in PREPARATION. Next time I will be PREPARED!