Very cool course, very MTB'ish in my opinion. I like that. The start was back on the long cobbled road. I made it up that and onto the grass first with Doug Plummer right behind me. Once on the grass, I cruised a bit to recover from the hard start. After the first set of barriers was the first of 2 long grass climbs. I pinned the first one, coasted down the other side and pinned the second one. After that I had to cruise a little bit and take a quick inventory of where everybody was. Doug was still really close. After the 2nd set of barriers, the couse dropped down a hairy section through the trees with a nasty S-turn around some trees. The course tape never stayed up very long there. Down by the pond and up a series of grass/dirt turns. We didn't enter the cobbled road at the very bottom this year, but about 1/2 way up. I used the 2 grass hills every lap and the rest of the course to recover somewhat. Hung up for the Masters 35+ win, but Doug wasn't very far back. Racing the previous night and early again this morning was tough. I'm pretty thrashed. Hopefully some cooler weather rolls in soon. It's tought to sweat like that in November.
