Wow! Where do I start. This was the fastest crit I have ever done. Usually in these races, You can hang on for dear life for the first 30 minutes or so, then after the breakaway gets established, it slows down until about 45minutes later when the break laps the feild. Last night, the pro teams were out for blood and there was no breakaway. The pace stayed unbelievably high for over 90 minutes. 60 laps. I sacrificed a little lag time between my warm up and start, to make sure I got a good starting position. It worked and I was one of the first guys on the line. The announcers made us take a lap, and when I came back around, somehow there were 100 riders already lined up in front of me. Perfect! But no excuses, I just didn't have the fitness. For 20 laps I slowly moved up, for the next 15 or so, I could not make myself move up, and the next 5 or so, I just prayed to finish, and finally fell off the back with about 18 laps to go. Bummer. I have some work to do. But what kind of work? My heart rate stayed above 93% the whole race, and at times, went up to 97%. Most people would say...well that in anaerobic, so you need to improve your anaerobic capacity. What I say...nobody can stay anaerobic for over an hour, so there has to be another way. The key here is threshold power, and muscular endurance. So...I have to train spefically to bring my threshold up around 93-95%. This might sounds impossible, but it's not. Also, that 93% has to at a wattage high enough to ride that fast; which is probobly around 600-1000 watts at times. And I have to be able to push those same watts and even more, for over 90 minutes. I wish I had a power meter, but I have my ways. I know what has to be done, now I just have to do it!