SariAnderson.com

I spoke to Sari this morning (Skype rules!) at her hotel in Abu Dhabi and got the latest. She’s still has a nasty cough, but hopefully it’s just a cold that’s on it’s way out.

The team spent the day attending a pre-race meeting and preparing their gear. The team is using bikes provided by the race organizers so they spent some time adding their own Fi’zik saddles and Continental tires to them. They also did some food shopping at the local mall, where Sari assured me the American export economy is plenty strong and she could find all the race food she needed from Nutella, to PB&J, to Coke and chocolate pudding.

Kloser and Sari prepping the bikes. All photos courtesy of Mike Bitton at CheckpointZero.com

Team Nike: Michael Tobin, Mike Kloser, Sari and Chris Forne

Otherwise, the team rested up for the remainder of the day, readying themselves for Friday’s prologue stage.  The prologue, which starts in just a few hours, will consist of 17km bike leg through the streets of Abu Dhabi past the Emirates Palace (nice digs!) to Cornice beach, where they’ll hop into tandem kayaks for a 12.5km paddle out to Lulu Island. On the island there’s a 10k trail run and then the prologue will finish with a 500m sprint in the kayaks back to the finish line on Cornice Beach. Sari thinks the prologue will take about three hours.

The race starts in just three hours, so if you want to stay up late and try to follow the teams online via GPS on the race website, check it out here. If I’m a little out of it tomorrow, you’ll know why.

I’ll post an update with the results from day one tomorrow. Stay tuned and post your comments below to cheer on the team!