Well thanks for the advice guys. I pretty much rested the whole week before the crit. (other obligations) So... I did a 1/2 hour warm up on the trainr and away I went. Man crits are fun I only lasted about 15 miunutes of the 1/2 hour crit before the town crier told me I was out! Not sure if I would have made it or not. Good news is that the rest of my team did pretty well. So - I just wanted to tell other guys hesitatating to do their first to go for it! Oh, I didn't really beleive you guys when you said prepare to be smoked/ass kicked but damn... thats how it went down. I can't wait to finish one now!
Tim

My first crit was almost exactly like yours. I was pulled after about 15-20 minutes. Your doing much better than I did, because I was totally disappointed. The good part is that its a good motivator to train hard and do better next time. Welcome to racing!

congrats germ!! you know what it takes now and you can take this racing thing as far as you want to. don't feel bad at all either. i saw a crit here with 1 kilometre laps where racers were getting lapped after like 4 minutes.

a full week off before a race??? what idiot told you that, the competition you were going up against? for me, as a cat3 rider, i never really take any days off as far as physical activities go. i ride usually 6 days a week, varying usually every other day with climbing efforts/sprints. Two days before a big race, Ill take it super easy, maybe go lift upper body weights at the gym, or ride my fixed gear through the city. the day before the race (whether its a road, crit, or TT) its usually a 2.5-3 hr easy spin w/ teammates, and that has always seemed to be the norm with everyone I know that races. try it out, im sure youll make it through the whole race...good luck!

a full week off before a race??? what idiot told you that, the competition you were going up against? for me, as a cat3 rider, i never really take any days off as far as physical activities go. i ride usually 6 days a week, varying usually every other day with climbing efforts/sprints. Two days before a big race, Ill take it super easy, maybe go lift upper body weights at the gym, or ride my fixed gear through the city. the day before the race (whether its a road, crit, or TT) its usually a 2.5-3 hr easy spin w/ teammates, and that has always seemed to be the norm with everyone I know that races. try it out, im sure youll make it through the whole race...good luck!

He said it was due to other obligations

and 2.5-3hrs before a race sounds like overkill to me. Whatever floats your boat. A full taper takes at least 10 days, but you can only do a few of those a year.