Race Across America!

Gear's packed and ready to roll out the door! I head out for Oceanside, CA tomorrow with the Race Across America and the Race Across the West. The individual women start Tuesday, the men Wednesday (along with the RAAW competitors), and the RAAM teams Saturday.

The course will take the racers (and me) across the US to Annapolis, MD. Over 3000 miles total in just under two weeks. The winning teams will do it in about a week, the individual winners a day or two longer. Everyone in to Annapolis by the 20th. I'll be following in one of the media vans covering the race, along with a driver and videographer. We'll be just five vehicles in total, populated with photographers, videographers, journalists, social media coordinators, and race officials will blanket the field as they spread out across the country. The race caravan includes team cars for every team.

This is going to be my first time to truly travel coast-to-coast by road and the route will take us past some spectacular landmarks. Among them (but certainly not all of them) the Valley of the Gods in Utah, Durango, CO, and the Ozarks. The course will be a challenging trip over the Rockies and Appalachians (and did you know Kansas isn't flat?). The race organization has done some incredible preparation for the race and it will be a pleasure to see it work out according to plan, although there are bound to be some inevitable problems (hence the phrase: "something always goes wrong in Kansas...").

Tomorrow will be a great opportunity to meet the teams, the individual racers, and all the great supporting cast that make this unbelievable feat possible. I'll be bringing you daily updates and photos from the race and will provide you with the URL to the official RAAM site, with a complete slate of photos, videos, stories, and real time race standings as the racers course across the US.