First time crit UK

Oh man!!!
Where do i start? What an eye-opener that was :hushed: I know it was “just” a mixed cat 3/4 race but I just wasn’t expecting that. Race lasted 40 minutes and the winner averaged 43kph ( 27mph) and he lapped everyone including second place. No offence to everyone else but, he just looked like he was at the wrong race and shouldn’t have been racing with us, he was so smooth and looked like it all was no effort yet he was so much quicker than the rest of us, he was a cat 3. A friend of his said he had been on the Great Britain rowing team. Back to the race and I just wasn’t prepared for the jostling and bumping for position that there was during the first few laps. It bordered on dangerous to a first timer and not necessary but I’ll know better next time (there will be a next time as I’ve signed up another one in a months time) which will also give me a bit more time to work on my fitness a bit more also. My race ended prematurely as I gave it big licks out of the hairpin bend to catch the pack I felt something “twang” in my leg just below my knee on the outside of my leg. It was a pain last year but sort of went away towards the end of the year and I thought that was the end of that. But obviously not :rage: So I cruised round to the start/finish and thought it prudent to finish at that point rather than do some longer lasting damage and de-rail the rest of the year. Just half a dozen laps of the 1.05k circuit. Anyway I sort of enjoyed what I got out of it. To be honest my TrainerRoad workouts seem harder, although it’s a different type of harder if you know what I mean. I did enjoy it but there was a bit too much to take in at one go as a first timer. I didn’t get to say hi to @LewisRidley, sorry, but never saw you amongst everything going on. Stuff was a bit of a blur. Hope your race went ok.
It was more of a shock to the system really or more like a rude awakening as I thought I couldn’t have prepared much better. I had the day off work the day before to sort my stuff out, changed my powermeter batteries for brand new ones just in case and even ate like @Nate_Pearson for three days before the race managing to stuff in 8g of carbs per kilo of body weight ( man, is that hard! And i know Nate managed 10g/kg!) all my gear was packed and organised the night before. I got to the race two hours early to get everything sorted in good time and make sure I warmed up properly. I did take the turbo but never used it as there was lots of quiet roads around to warm up on and that’s what I’d say the majority of the riders did. But, next time I will go with what I know and use the turbo to warm up on. There was loads of parking and it was all safe and monitored so leaving stuff in the car wasn’t so much of a worry. I also had a look at Strava afterwards to see what the winner and other riders were putting out in terms of watts and averages etc. I wasn’t that far off on speed (and once you lose the wheel or the guy in front of you loses his wheel, it really is hard work to get back on with the pack). I wasnt far off on average speed, maybe 2kph slower but the wattage some people were averaging was quite a bit more than me. The third placed rider was the exception though as he was lightweight but his handling and general race skills must have been good to have finished where he did so there is hope for me yet.
For those asking about w/kg to race in uk crits I’m just over 3.5w/kg but lightweight at 63kg (139 pounds) so on a flat day like today I’d reckon higher raw watts would be a better bet than w/kg. So between now and the next race I’m going to continue with the general build, I’ve got 4 weeks left (low volume) and throw in a few more crit specific workouts on an attempt to replicate what went on today to better prepare for next time. It wasn’t an expensive day out or learning curve really. It cost £15 total so just under $20 to our American friends (how does that compare to you?). Any advice will be much appreciated. Cheers.

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