From: Alicia
[mailto:mmansuetti@xxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 3:35
PM To: 'ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx' Subject: OD Ride Story
OD Rocks!!!!! That is what their t-shirts says and omg
what rocks they have, short ones, skinny ones, flat ones, sharp ones, big ones,
little ones, round ones, and just rocks everywhere!!! A friend of ours
had told us that OD was very “do-able” because she went there last
fall for the 50 mile NC so 7 of us set out to do OD for their last year on
their historic trail (she lied). My friend Lynn Kenelly and I were doing
the hundred and our mentor Faith Connelly and 4 of our other friends were doing
the 50.
Stagg gave us a trail advisory the day before so we would
know what to expect. He had it sound kind of bad, no; we thought it could
not be that hard. We all pre-rode the first 3 miles of trail that Stagg
said was the hardest the day before. We thought ok it was not that hard.
Lynn and I started out right behind Stagg for the first 3
miles and then hit what seemed like endless miles of hard asphalt road with
small gravel on the top. Lynn’s
horse has a bigger canter in the beginning of the ride so she pulled away from
me to the front and I dropped back a mile or so behind her. We had said
we would ride together but if we separated that would be ok also. We both
just wanted to finish OD. After about 12 miles she had slowed down, and I
had sped up and we connected as ride partners again. We easily rode the
first 50 miles and our horses were awesome just moving along.
Then the fun started. The next 17 miles was like
something out of a bad endurance movie. The worst rocks and climbs and
descents we had EVER seen. Being from South Carolina I have never liked Sherman and I really don’t like him now after seeing
his Gap! Thought I was going to die there. And they said we did it
the easy direction! I was on foot resting my back when we were climbing
down Sherman’s.
Stupid I was, my mare quit descending and acted like a mule. What I did
not realize is the she was trying not to slide down on top of me. Somehow
I perched on one rock while she was standing on some boulder and managed to get
on her so we could descend down to more civilized rocks. It took us about
5 hours to ride those 17 miles!!!!
