You wake up every morning with tasks rolling through your head.  Don’t forget to talk to this rider about their race time, find the Tour Director and make sure they have all their needs met before breakfast. Drink coffee, don’t forget to lube your chain before getting on the bike.  Jam, stuff elbow your gear back into your locker.  Unpack your locker after realizing your bike shoes are in the back.  Try to remember where you put your sunglasses. Wash your breakfast dishes. Jam them into your already overstuffed locker. Trust me a notepad isn’t enough.  Anything that you think you can get done on tour…updating your website…emailing friends…trying to make your external drive talk to your new netbook… trying to get a resume emailed,  just don’t happen. Only once have  I managed to set up my tent before dark.  I’m lucky if I can make it to my tent with enough energy in me to set up the cot and listen to one song before falling asleep. The journaling has taken a back seat to slee. Keep in mind that this is usually before 9pm… camp bedtime seems to be sometime around 7:30-8:30pm. 

Anything you do try to get done will take 120x longer then  you think it will.  This is very frustrating.  Just going to get something out of my locker will take me 45min and 3 trips before I have what I need.  Before we left Egypt our Tour director and I tried to hand out the staff and local rider race plates.  It took us 6 days

Day one: we talked about how we need to get them done.  The decided it was best to do it in the morning.

Day two: We ask each other where the race plates are before realizing that they are in the lunch truck that hasn’t arrived yet.  We decided to wait until after dinner.

Day three: we get the plates out of the truck but not the sheet with who get which number.  No one knows where the sheet is.  We decided we are too tired to look and decide that we’ll look for it in the morning.

Day four: we seperate the race plates between riders and staff.  But everyone has gone to bed so we decide to hand them out in the morning at breakfast.  We leave Egypt in 4 days.

Day five: We try to hand them out but realize that we don’t have zip ties can’t find bike mechanic.  We must wait…again

Day six: success the race plates are out!

Next task trying to upload photos…estimated delivery 6 weeks…