Originally Posted by smoke
i don't race crits so i'm not an expert, but i don't agree with this. i don't know your age, but as we get older, recovery becomes more and more important. studies have shown that probably the biggest difference between older and younger people is that older people don't recover as fast. therefore, you need a longer amount of time. i learned this from experience. i did two hard, high interval training rides two days in a row, then the next two days were easy recovery rides. both the intervals days, i was producing my biggest power numbers of the year. then two recovery rides and i felt pretty good. the next day, i got 35 minutes into a time trial and damn near ground to a halt. just an absolute collapse. i talked to three people, and they all agreed i didn't have nearly enough recovery. i'm 52, so i'm sure i'm a lot older than you, but you simply may not have been up to two days of crits in a row.
Smoke, I'm reminded of the words of Bugs Bunny:
"He don't know me too well, do he?"
I'm just 46, so I can only speak for the young folks, plus I've done more than a few back to backer's this year, with some pretty good finishes in 3 races in the same weekend (roadraces and crits that both had climbing in them). And that's racing against kids and the 1/2's.
And I've dome pretty well in 3 of the 4 stage races I've done (we won't talk about the beating I got in the other).
60 minutes of crit riding, unless you're in full TT mode from the gun, or going for every prime, isn't a lot of effort per se, especially at the 4/5 level. If you're seeing a big drop the next day it's an indicator of a lack of racing fitness, which is to be expected when you're just starting out.
My comment wasn't meant at all derogatory, but it was meant to give an idea on where the bar should be. Moving up to a faster class without improving overall fitness is going to expose this even more, especially if you start doing road races.