Quote Originally Posted by Mimosa View Post
It must be 11 years ago or something since I did this last ... now I know why

It was a crit which you could compare with a US cat 3/4 race, 25 female riders, length about 26 miles on a closed circuit of a mile in the centre of a small town. So lot's of people cheering for us

Owh my gd, did my lungs BURN !! I thought I was gonna die after 2 laps, but I hung in there. Halfway I slowly got into it and was able to 'relax' more. On the back straight of the last lap (yes, I was still with the bunch) I moved up to the frontrunners of the bunch, my thought was 'at least I am with the first few now'. And then pulled out everything I still had on the finish straight ... and came in 4th! Which amazes me, I thought lots of people would pas me but in the end only a couple did. I also was 5th at 2 money sprints and even 2nd on one, so I got to take 4 envelops home ... barely enough to pay for the gas used to get there and back.

Looking forward to the next venue. But first I'll start riding the local wednesday evening club races with the guys to pick up some race speed and strength.
Did you warm up beforehand? Sounds like you did really well! You might avoid some of the death feeling by warming up better or longer. Then all you have to worry about is: my heart rate was how high? for how long?