With my newly printed authorization to race I drove to Fremont Sunday the 9th to ride in the Early Bird Crit. After the mentoring session I raced in the cat 5 30-44 yo race. I've wondered how I would do in these early crits because so much of my training has been steady state, I haven't really moved out of my base period to incorporate high intensity (vo2max, anaerobic, or neuromuscular). That said I was confident, I warmed up, had a good pee and set off for the starting line. I was at the front and on the far left of the four R corners course. At the start I was on the front and within the first lap myself and four other guys who would be setting the pace the whole time were sharing time in the wind. I was feeling really good, I drove the pace up several times to gauge my legs but never really went 'all in'. Finally watching the laps count down from 5-1 to go, on the last lap I pulled out of the wind and the guy behind me didn't want to work either, the pace slowed and for the first time I was in the pack rather than at the front! With 3 corners to go watching a 2 man break pulling away fast! That break is where I was supposed to be! I had to rip myself out of the pack and go 'all in' to get away, another guy grabbed my wheel and he and I traded pulls around the last 2 corners finally overtaking the break 100 yards from the line only to be at the front of a bunch sprint I had no sprint in me after a kilometer of pushin 30 mph in pursuit and saw a few jerseys in front of me at the line. The 40 min crit averaged 24.5 mph. The lessons I'm taking away are: never stop fighting to stay at the front if, I had joined the break it would have been the winning move always position yourself where you can react, pedal through corners it prevents that little gap and keeps you in your saddle when you come out of the turn.