This is why it's called the Smoky Mountains.....

Here's a picture from Saturday April 5th while on our way to the SERC race at Tsali trails in North Carolina.  Yep, that's right, my friends talked me into going.  Turned out to be a good thing, I made the podium again in 3rd.

Mapquest said to take route 441 through the Great Smoky Mountains National Forest which was very scenic.  However, it took a really long time to go a short distance and we chose another route home.  I did get a few pictures of the mountains during the ride - this one turned out to be the best one.

We left Columbus a little after 7am on Saturday morning, stopped in Cincinnati to pick up Bridget Donovan and made our way down to Bryson City, NC.  We checked in to the hotel and headed over to the Tsali trails to register and pre-ride.  As we made our way over to the race course, it began to rain and rain and rain.  By the time we got to the trail head it was pouring.  So we signed up and decided to skip the pre-ride.  It would've been nice to pre-ride, especially since I had never been there before, but it was pouring rain, the trail was 14.3 miles for one lap, it was already 5:30pm, and I'm just not going to get faster in one day.

We headed back to the hotel for some dinner, Joe and I had pre-made dinner and breakfast to try to cut back on some expenses.  As the evening went on, I developed a stomach ache and poor Joe and Bridget had to be in the same room as me.  Ha ha ha!  I took some Tums and by morning I felt a little better and blamed it on my nerves.

We headed over to the race a little early, I guess I just couldn't sleep in as I was up at 7am and was bored.  We watched the sport riders take off and some of the beginners finish.  For warm up, we rode a small portion of the beginning before heading over to some un-used trails.  At the line-up I counted 17 women that included pros and experts, although there was no way to distinguish eachother.  At Chickasaw they wrote a "P" on the backside of the pros leg so we knew who was who, but they did not do that at this race.  Seventeen was definitely more than I was used to racing with and when we took off at the start, I got pushed all over the place.  By the time we hit the woods, I was in 9th position.  I made my way up to 2nd position within the first 1/2 lap or 7 miles.  Towards the end of the first lap, a pro rider from the Trek/VW team had caught back up to me and we crossed the finish of our first lap together.  I did not know at the time that I was in 3rd, my counting was off as I thought I was in 5th.  As I was heading out for my second lap, my friend Amanda McKay yelled out to me "come on Amanda!  You're in 3rd!"  I said "What?!"    Unfortunately, at the same time she brought on the excitement of me being in 3rd, the tiredness began to set in.  I have really got to work on this.  During the second lap, I got passed by one more pro and 2 experts, which put me in 3rd for my class and 6th overall.  That is where I finished and I am very happy with that since my goal was top 5.

On the way home, my stomach ache came back.  hee hee hee