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Death Ride, July 15 1996
by Jennie Phillips

The Death Ride was very disappointing for me this year. Bottom line is that I ended the day with 110miles and 13120ft of climbing BUT DID NOT FINISH. I was feeling pretty good all morning, although not eating very much (that should have been my sign!) and had finished 86miles and 11,500ft after 6:45 elapsed (12:45pm). I thought I was definitely in route to meeting (or hopefully beating) Donny's projection of a 4pm finish for me. Both sides of Monitor and both sides of Ebbett's were relatively painless....OK, some pain as expected. When I got to Turtle Rock I was definitely ready for lunch. Well, it wasn't a nice sandwich spread with pastas and fruits....instead it was a brown paper sack with a ready made ham and cheese sandwich, bag of fritos, 2 cherry tomatos. No pastas, bananas, etc. Went to fill up on Cytomax and they had run out! So I ate nothing.

So off I went towards pass #5 and started eating the lone Stoker bar that I had been carrying all day. Unfortunately it wasn't enough. My legs started seizing up on the way thru Woodfords Canyon. Stopped 3 times to spray Kool N Fit on 'em but then ran out of the stuff. Had to abandon at the Pickett's Junction rest stop.

I am very very very disappointed about not finishing and have already set my sights on next year. ONLY next year I'm heading up earlier in the week and really get acclimated to the altitude (I had the same problems last year at Pedal the Peaks where the early signs of altitude sickness were not being hungry and having difficulty making myself eat).

The campout part was lots of fun though! We saw bears in the campground (Don and Leroy saw one in camp the nite before I arrived!). Got some good pictures of the bears and dumpsters! Had good weather. Fortunately, I missed the rain on Ebbett's pass that some others unfortunately ran into.

As for the finish....well, there's always next year!!

Congratulations to Donny, Karen, Ron T, David Steele, Leroy, and Jeff Coe who all finished!!! Also saw Roy at Turtle Rock (after I had returned from Pickett's Junction) and he was heading off to get #5. Congrats to him for finishing too!

Gregory was helping a lady in distress (caught in the rain, near hypothermia) and failed to make the time cut off for dropping down the back side of Ebbett's to Hermit Valley) and so also did not finish. He gets the Good Samaritan award though!