The start/finish area had taken over the whole road and the only access of getting in or out of that road was a little bypass detour around the venue. I am not sure exactly how to explain it, but it was a controlled, super chaotic situation. Imagine an already narrow road with no shoulder that just fit two cars and people were parking on both sides of this road where half of their car was on the sidewalk or grass and the other half was in the road. So, there were cars coming from both directions trying to get around each other, while other cars were trying to park, while people were trying to walk over to the venue with their flags and noise makers, and while bicycles were trying to warm-up...

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If it is hot enough that you might overheat during the warm up, keep yourself wet with plain, cool water while you spin around for 20-25 minutes and call that warming up. If it's so cold and wet that you'll be hypothermic if you do the warm up,... Putting that less technically, take about a half hour to warm up very gradually until you reach your LT. Then do three 2-minute intervals with three minute rests right on the edge of breathing harder and feeling a hint of leg burn. I have always been fascinated to watch my heart rate climb slowly for 15 to 20 minutes and then stabilize during a steady effort warm-up, or, the hills I face before my heart rate lifts seem harder than those same climbs later in a ride. If the race starts with a climb, or the riders are likely to take off hard, use the same warm-up as before a shorter race. What to do before a longer race depends on how the race is likely to start. I don't like to have people warm up by power because if something is not quite right, a power that is usually sub-LT can be anaerobic and burn too many matches before the race start. Scott Saifer says: 10 minutes easy ending less than 15 minutes before the start. Can you give me any heart rate targets for a proper warm-up in preparation for a 2-3 hour race and an under 45 min.

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