Border Battle recap

Lots of talent on the Start Line. 3rd wheel behind J. LaLonde after the crazy straight up into the sky start climb. Into Single Track and passed Macjei after his usual BMX sprint start. Things were much slower than I had expected or I was feeling pretty good. Looking back I should have taken the lead earlier in the lap, cause Jesse, Me, and Marko had a small gap and I felt like I could really rip the sinlge track here.

Train formed of 7 riders, Jesse, Me, Marko, TJ, Mike Phillips, Brendan Moore, and Sam Oftendahl. Jesse seemed done pulling after first half-lap so I took the reins for last half of the first. Felt really strong in the tech stuff, and coming into the monster climb on the second lap TJ put in a hard effort to take the lead and Marko squezzed in behind him. This hurt pretty good and I struggled a bit to close a 10 foot gap for a few minutes as Jesse kept egging me on to "Get On That!". Taking ever turn to its limit to conserve energy at this point and I burped my tire to the rim about half way through the lap. Stopped to fix it and watched the train roll away. Sam O. had fallen off and he came by shorlty after. I had gotten the tire to seal by the time Darrin Braun and Eric O. came up and I led them into lap 3.

D.B. put in a good climb at the start of this lap and we seperated Eric ad I think Dallas was in there before the climb. I took over half-way through lap 3 as I saw Jeff Hall coming and I knew he was going at a good clip. D.B. took a spill and I was solo to fend off Jeff. I started paying for chasing hard here and not fueling right and had to let Hall go when he closed the gap at the end of lap 4, I thought that was it for being caught, but lap five I was hurting bad and still didn't seem to have fuel or maybe lack of electrolytes, as I was kicking myself for not taking any in the heat. A little ways in I saw Cam Kirkpatrick coming on and I knew his late game is always amazing! I thought maybe in the single track I would hold him off, but too much pressure in the rear tire ended that story and probably had a lot to do with losing so much time over the last 3 laps, as I filled it too much after the burp. Cam caught me on an open flat and I had to just let him go.

All the way from lap 3 to the finish the lap traffic was horrible. As I started settling in for a mediocre finish I saw no one chasing behind. I couldn't get by some compy's in a long single track section before the finish and it almost cost me some more places as Macjei, Jeff Melcher, and Ted Hanes were in hot pursuit to clip me at the line. Held them off for 9th, not bad but not too good or what I was hoping for.

I feel great tonight, but I think the Race/Peak Period I have been riding out for a month+ is officially over and I gotta get back to some real training program, as those last laps were not too stellar.

Huge thanks to Caleb Zlomke, my Brother-in-Law, for amazing water hand-ups! You rock BRO!
Thanks to everyone cheering out there, you guys make it so enjoyable, I hope it was entertaining!