Sarasota Recap

This last Sunday I raced the Sarasota Pan-Am Cup down in sunny Florida. Coming off the Clermont sprint the weekend before was a great chance to really hone my racing skills, and I think I did a good job of that. I knew what I needed to work on, and this was a chance to make those corrections.

Sarasota is a cool town. I’ve been there several times, both for races and vacation, and I always enjoy it. I gotta say though, when we pulled up to the race site for the first time and found a giant construction zone, my first thought was, “what a s#!+ hole!” My opinion of the venue soon changed once I had raced on it! With their plans, a year from now this place will look as awesome as it was to race.

After my standard pre-race dinner of spaghetti and meatballs (ok, so sue me, it was baked ziti alright?!) a good night’s sleep, and my shakeout run that morning, I biked over to the course. I like doing this, it eliminates the hassle of parking, and it gets your legs warmed up. I had a solid warm up, called my momma and Rachel (S/O to my GF for being more nervous than I was race day morning! You keep holdin’ it down, shawty!) and I headed down to the water.

            

One of the skills I knew I needed to work on was aggression. Of all the things I can take away from this race, the fact that I CAN race aggressively is #1. If you got in my “bubble” on the swim, I probably hit you. If you hit me, I definitely hit you. If you kept rubbing shoulders with me, I used my size to drive you the hell off of me. For once, being a big guy helps! 

Coming out onto the pontoon after the first lap, I heard someone (I am assuming it was one of the Collegiate Recruitment girls) say, "oh, that's Sam! GGGOOOO SSSSAAAAAA-" splash... I couldn't help but think of the Murphy Lee line, "I want my name not, not said but screamed!" In that moment in the air, I felt like a baller. It was pretty cool, and definitely got me going for the second lap!

I was still in attack mode on the second lap of the swim, but not quite enough. There was a breakaway of 4 that I should’ve been with, no question.

            

Transition was bad news. My wetsuit zipper got stuck at my shoulder blades. I consider this an unforeseeable problem, not really a whole lot I could’ve done about it. I've literally never in my life checked a zipper before using it, but you can bet I will now before every race.

Either way, I lost 30 seconds on the main group (not the breakaway, they were long gone) and wound up having to settle for the chase pack. We were well organized, and we worked hard, but all we succeeded in doing was drop a few stragglers like a clingy ex-girlfriend (hehe) and keep the lead group within 2 minutes. 

            

The run time was fair. I should’ve packed up with a couple guys that I let go. I was afraid to take a risk. But, I need to take those or I’ll never know how fast I can truly be. I did reel one of the guys in on the last lap. All it took was getting angry. Once I decided I wanted his place, he didn’t stand a chance. I need to tap into that earlier.

            

B- overall on the day. But, A- on the mental aspect! I scratched the surface of a whole new me. There is a next level I saw glimpses of that I’ve been afraid to go to for whatever reason. Now that I know how to get there, I am very excited for this season and proud of how I turned around my head game in 1 week! Look out for Sam 2.0 in the coming races! Until next time, FOLLOW THE PACE RABBIT!