As expected, Winter Park was a pretty flat course. Scott did manage to find a small amount of elevation but it couldn't have been much more than 10ft for a whole lap. Add a healthy dose of pavement to this flat course with few technical points and you had one fast course. That was about as close to a road race I have ever been in during cyclocross. The race still broke up but there was a group of eight of us that seperated ourselves from the rest rather early and we stayed together for quite a number of laps. There were some surges that opened small gaps but there closed up again. Finally, the Mack rider and Dawson stuck one of their surges followed by Farrell who chased the rest of the way and may have caught Dawson eventually. I fell off the pace and the remaining group of four stayed together in the middle and was eventually caught by The Dude who had mechanical problems earlier. Toward the end my lower back was sore. I'm placing the cause of the flatness of the course and having to push an unusually large gear.

A couple thoughts on the course. 1) Using green flag markers is not the best idea. They tend to blend into the grass. If the course had been more technical it could have been difficult to the course. 2) Kudos for a paved start, like cross should be, but there is no need to start at the finish line. UCI races have something like 150-200m of pavement before heading off-road. This could have been accomplished yesterday by starting where the course first re-entered the road for the final stretch. Nevertheless, yesterday was a fun race.

Today is Queeny and with any luck it will be similar to the setup they had last year. That was a fun course.