Race Recap: The 2022 Carolina Cup
Yes, the Carolina Cup took place nearly two weeks ago and yes it’s taken us just as long to recap our race and thoughts on the event. No, we don’t have a good excuse. We look forward to the Carolina Cup every year. We actually counted how many times we’ve made this trip to North Carolina for the event and we landed on seven. Our last one was only six months ago and we’re not gonna lie, we still have a little PTSD from that one! (Here’s your refresh if you don’t remember the offshore nor’easter, gale force winds, and king tide.)
But this year — this year was the reward for showing up in Wrightsville Beach in 2021. Race day conditions were better than any we can remember in recent history. And the weather leading up to race day was stellar, allowing us to truly enjoy getting out for practice paddles and clinics with the pros (a highlight of every Carolina Cup!).
We both raced the Money Island course, which should technically be a 10k but a new route made it more like 8 miles. And, as we drove home from Wrightsville, we realized there were three main themes that emerged from our experiences on the course this year.
Reading water is just as important in your race strategy as any physical or technical preparation. We learned this in the early days of our paddling careers when we were navigating whitewater, and time and time again it’s proven invaluable on the race course. This means knowing how to use tides and current in your favor, knowing whether wind or current is affecting you more, and being able to identify what’s happening below the surface that could help or hurt your route. For example, both of us were catching up to and passing, stronger and faster racers because of the lines we chose on the course.
Trust but verify your plan. It was so beneficial for us to preview the race course, especially because it was a new route for everyone. It allowed us to test theories and make a plan. But just as important is trusting that plan and sticking with it on race day. It’s so easy to see what others are doing and think you’re making a mistake. While there will inevitably be some amount of decisions to make in real-time, don’t doubt yourself in the middle of your race. Trust that you’ve done your homework, you’re prepared, and you know how to make the choices that are right for you. For example, we worked with our group of paddlers to test our theories around the fastest and slowest routes in the days leading up to the race and we dialed in on our hydration and nutrition plan before we ever lined up at the start.
Goal setting can look like a lot of different things. We’re both approaching our race season a little differently this year. In the past, we were really focused on the podium. But last year, we starting shifting that mindset, lowering our expectations so as not to set ourselves up for failure. Goals can, and we’d argue should, be lofty, but they should always be attainable with the right planning and practice. At the Carolina Cup, we both set goals that had nothing to do with getting on the podium. Instead we set a time goal for us to complete the race within. At this race, and really for all of our races this season, we’re challenging ourselves with longer and tougher races and looking to see progress throughout the season, whether that’s a faster time, a more efficient stroke, a certain placement in the final rankings, or just feeling stronger and less sore afterwards.
Honestly, the highlight of this year’s Carolina Cup was seeing our friends and teammates exceed their goals and introducing first-time racers to the stoke of SUP racing. 7 out of the 10 of us on Team Filthy Flamingos stood on the podium at this year’s award ceremony, some of them for the first time and some of them first time racers (all of us finished in the top 10 in our divisions!). While it’s certainly not all about the podium placement, it was a joy and pride to see them set a goal and achieve it or even surprise themselves with their abilities. As for us, we crushed our goals, finishing the Money Island race in less than 2 hours and coming in 4th (Scott) and 6th (Meredith) in our categories.
If you’re in the DC area, your next opportunity to race is over Memorial Day weekend. As for us, we’re setting our sites on our next race, which is the first in the B’More SUP Cup series. You can check out a slew of upcoming races here.
