I stayed up late last night, urging the little blue Team Nike GPS icon on my computer to keep moving through Google Earth towards the finish line of the prologue.

It sounds like the pace was fast and furious yesterday, as the 36 teams in the race sped through the streets of Abu Dhabi, paddled around Lulu island and ran a 10k across the beach. Richard and Elina Ussher’s Team Desert Islands (NZ) won the stage in a time of 2:23. Our Team Nike was six minutes back and finished the day in sixth place. I’m sure it’s not where they want to be in the race standings, but this is a long race, with five, 8-hour+ days to go…six minutes isn’t much in the big picture.

All the team were bussed north after today’s stage to Sir Bani Yas island, a beautiful wildlife refuge where they’ll have a long mountain bike stage in the morning.

Click here to read the official report from today’s stage.