Improving endourance for racing

Originally Posted by beison

I just completed my first set of races at the collegiate D level (like cat 5's) and came in 11th on the first day (road race) and 13th on the second day (crit) in a field of 70ish. Now it's not necessarially that I'm upset with these results, but for both of the races, I was in the top 3-5 people until the last half mile, and then I lost it. In the crit I was even in a 4 man breakaway and we got about 10 seconds on the pack until we got caught. I think that for both of these races, I would have liked to finished top 5 at least

On training rides with my team, I have a better jump than my fellow cat 3 team mate who specializes in sprinting. Totally aside from positioning and keeping myself together in the pack to conserve energy, I felt like by the end of the race when I should have been ready to sprint and finish strong, I had nothing left. Like I had burned all my matches earlier in the race.

I guess I was wondering if you guys had any suggestions for building endourance for racing, so that when it comes time for the sprint at the end of a race, I have some energy to draw on.