Mary gets ready to head off (Image credit: Mary McConneloug & Mike Broderick)
Long days of maddening logistics and stressful preparation were the first sign that Mary and I were getting ready to kick off our 2009 race season. Careful planning for our style of racing and travel is critical. It's important to make certain we bring EVERYTHING that we might need for any given race, condition and time period throughout our entire adventure. Time and again this seems to be the toughest part of our tag team program. The longer the travel, the more intense the planning.
This one includes three weeks in Chile , two weeks in South Africa and two-plus months in Europe. It covers a lot of time, crosses seasonal boundaries and necessitates equipment for a wide range of riding conditions. For all these reasons, we were packing some pretty big luggage. The training, sleep and relationship becomes compromised as we shift into travel mode and try to accomplish the most critical things with our time left to live like "pro riders", but somehow we are always pushing it until the last minute.
The final two days, with only eight hours of sleep, were a difficult crunch and by the end, we were literally throwing random piles of our things into storage, leaving bikes and gear in people's attics and once again relying heavily on the goodness and generosity of our friends. Our last-minute style made a last-second testing visit by USADA (the US national anti-doping association - ed.) more inconvenient than the usual quick visit. After a force feeding of coffee and water to help squeeze the necessary 90ml out of Mary, we were in the car and on the road before the doping control officer was done filing away her papers.
