2022 AMC 8 Problem 11

Henry the donkey has a very long piece of pasta. He takes a number of bites of pasta, each time eating 3 inches of pasta from the middle of one piece. In the end, he has 10 pieces of pasta whose total length is 17 inches. How long, in inches, was the piece of pasta he started with?

\textbf{(A)} ~34\qquad\textbf{(B)} ~38\qquad\textbf{(C)} ~41\qquad\textbf{(D)} ~44\qquad\textbf{(E)} ~47

Full credit goes to MAA for authoring these problems. These problems were taken on the AOPS website.