i am not doing well in crits
 

i can go out and hammer in a group on varied terrain on the road and do like 25 miles in just over an hour or ride for 40-50 miles mostly at around 18-20 mph or more . but in crits the slowing down for corners and sprinting with the pack over and over , even at just a 21 mph average i blow up and i am done way before its over . i guess i need to go out and do intervals and do maybe like stop and hammer over and over again for an hour type intervals. wil that help has anyone else had this problem?

hill efforts for strength

vo2 max work on the ergo

Sounds from a quick glance like you're lacking intensity. If sprinting over and over is wearing you out, then sprint over and over in your training. Do some 1-minute intervals and some intense, all-out sprints. You sound like you have a decent aerobic base but haven't trained the anaerobic side of the house.

If you're not training for it there's no reason to expect your body to do it in a race.

its mainly as the pack corners then kicks up the pace over and over as most crits do seems to wear me out, i have thought about working on this on a similar course in an empty office park or my neighborhood. i thought i could just go out on a flat road an ddo this for an hour slow down and kick it up for teh same time fluxuations a crit doe sbut i think getting the cornering feel and shifting up and down would help so i get the full expierence.

I kinda treat cornering practice as a separate workout--that can be done on an easy day. Do some 1-minute, hard-as-you-can-go intervals with 2-3 minute recoveries (a set of 8 or so), or just to an easier endurance-pace ride with lots of hard, hard accelerations thrown in there.

Just my $0.02, and I'm hardly the master of the crit or anything, but that's what helps me...

1x/week do 10x30"on seated, max effort/30"off.

^^^ MDCatV regularly stomps my a$$ when he's slummin' it in the 3/4 races, so listen to him. :D

You give me too much credit:o

Leonardtown this weekend? I cant do (wife's birthday and for some odd reason traveling to southern MD to watch me crit isnt her idea of a good way to spend it, go figure). It's a really good race, you should do well.

An hour is way too long to be considered an "interval". It's even too long to be considered tempo. You need more intensity in your training.

Such as sprint which are all out 100% screaming bloody-murder efforts of about 20-30 seconds max. If you have anything left after this time, you didn't go hard enough. Work on spinning super fast and smooth on your sprints too. Once a week do 10-15 sprints with full recovery in between (2-5 minutes). Best to get pulled up to race-speed to start a sprint, like a lead-out partner or mini-vans.

Then intervals are the other workout you're lacking. The 1-minute to 2-minute intervals are the best for crits. Again, like with the sprints, by the end of interval, you should have NOTHING left to give. Your legs should locked up in searing needle-pinching pain and your lungs should be on fire and you might even be able to taste some blood.

Here's what I would do:

1) Find local good-for-nothing college kids (like me).
2) Ride with said knuckleheads.
3) Experience the phenomenon that happens when they drill it up every hill and intentionally slow down our breathing under the context that we're "oh yeah, just taking it easy".

While I usually abhor said rides, as I like to do my own thing, riding with my teammates only one day a week (and then spending all weekend with them, literally the only time apart with some of them is when using the restroom) usually gets my quota of good hard jumps and one minute efforts in. We all like to put in a good dig in on each other and will go out of our way to do so, it seems.

You can make the ride even better if you string it out single file for a while, take a good 5-10-15 minute pull, and then try to latch on before they come flying by in the leadout for the next town line sprint. If you can work it out right in a 2hr ride, a group of guys can all get some good intensity in a wide range of areas, in addition to helping your team work out roles for dragging back breaks (a couple to work, one to jump and tow, the last to bridge) and leadouts.

Well, it's gonna be close. I'm flying out to a wedding Fri night and getting back Sunday morning. If everything goes smoothly at the airport I'm headed straight home to grab my bike and get to the race. The first race will be just getting there. :D

Happy B-day to your wife--I guess if she wants to be lame and not sit through a crit on her birthday you should respect that. ;)

That part tells me you're too far back in the pack. Try to stay in the front 1/3 and there will be less sprinting and even a better draft.

so heres the other part of the question, if i apply thses good training techniques, and i work hard how long till i see results i like? i would like to disappear for a bit and come back better. i changed a lot in my life since last summer and have gotten in better shape than i have been in years while working hard all winter dieting and on the trainer , i planned to race this year but the weather has not been good and consistent traing routines have been hard to do, and sadly the races still come up and i am not were i wanna be. i have been abl eto do afew but i have sadly been skipping more.

I'm guessing you'll see an improvement within a couple weeks of hitting the intervals, but eventually you'll hit a bit of a plateau and the performance gains won't come as quickly.

Do your intervals, race as often as possible.

Best way to apply your fitness, as well as GAIN fitness through racing. You might learn a thing or two as well...

DO INTERVALS!!


(caps were needed)

is there a weekly training crit in your area? -if you want to get better at crit racing, race more crits.

note: when i started doing the weekly series last year(when i was living in phoenix) i could barely hang with the C race, then after a month i was consistenly top-3 in the Cs and then managed to not get dropped in the B race. -now in the "real" crits i do i actually have something left for the sprint.

+1 urban- you want to be up toward the front. if you're too far back, you're probably scrubbing speed as you come around the corner. leading to hard efforts to catch back on=wasted energy.
Practice going around corners fast.
Practice going around corners without hitting your brakes. (pro's will tell you to practice, practice)
Practice intervals.

Intervals. Short and hard.

Avoiding the yo-yo effect is important for saving stamina. I have been practicing this technique a bit recently and it seems to work great:

When towards the back of the pack where there is a lot of accordian action in the corners, I let a little gap form between myself and the wheel in front of me a bit before the corner. Then just going into the corner, I give it a little juice. As I exit the corner, I usually find that "push" allows me to match the acceleration of the guy in front while coming out of the corner. The difference is that it is a lot smoother. I found myself a lot fresher later in the race.

Another option is, when the accordian happens, instead of slowing, just take this opportunity to pas up a few riders through the corner. It's like free positions.

Those couple things helped me out so far. I am also far from a crit monster, so take it for what it's worth. Im usually just trying to have some kind of presence in the last lap.

this is why we motor pace and do group many group rides.

cacatfish, just to clarify, you mean that you are accelerating before you go into the turn correct? not when you are executing... don't want to clip a pedal. ;)

Yes indeed, just beginning to turn into the corner, but before maximum lean angle.
Ive clipped a pedal once or twice...I always try to avoid it!

The other thing about opening a slight gap before entering the turn is that you don't have to slow down as much. Your faster speed going around the turn means that accelerating out of the turn will be easier. You can keep up with the guy ahead with less effort than him. Or if you start pedaling just 5-10ft earlier than him, you can actually pass him up coming out of the turn. I can make up ground and pass 2-3 people easily this way without working any harder than them.

I don't like to start pedaling unit I'm after the apex of the turn and starting to straighten up. Clipping a pedal there just straightens you up a little faster. Clipping a pedal while diving into a corner's a good way to lift the rear tyre and end up doing pinwheel spins on your pedal-spindle... :eek:

yes we have weekly training crits they started a month 2 months ago and it has rained almost every one of them out but a few. fast race pace group ride si have no problem with its just the speed up slow down thing that pops me.