Road Warrior Blog

9 April 2008

Exhausted, thirsty … and lost

Posted by Nick Katsarelas under: Nick Katsarelas .

It was bound to happen.

I have a horrible sense of direction. It’s not uncommon for me to be lost while driving. Maps don’t help. Oh, I’m pretty good with following printed directions, but I can’t read them in reverse. I’ve been doing the Road Warrior’s Sunday run around Reeds Lake for, what, four months now? and still need to follow someone for fear of not finding my way back.

Before last Saturday’s run, I was hoping someone else my speed would run the 16-mile route. Oh, I asked. Julie, Shelly, Deb, Kristen, Steve, Bob … none was running 16. The 16-milers (Chaz, Matt) were too fast for me. RunGazelle had printed maps for various lengths — 10, 12, 14, and 16. I took a copy of the 16-mile map, traced the route with my finger, folded it and stuffed it in my jacket. I have a map, I thought. How lost could I get?

For the first five or six miles, we were all pretty much running in the same direction, so I followed the pack. But as runners doing less than 16 reached their turnaround points, the pack got thinner and thinner. I caught up with a foursome doing 16 miles, and I followed them to the eight-mile point, where we turned around. Their pace was faster than mine, but I kept them in my cross-hairs until I lost them at around the nine-mile mark.

I was alone for awhile, then came across three runners who had stopped to stretch. A guy with “Mad Dog” printed on the back of his black shirt informed me they weren’t with RunGazelle, so once again, I plodded along, alone. But look! In the distance! An aid station! There, I found three runners with RG. We had only three miles to go, and so we took off together. But they were faster, and I lost them at the Coke plant.

And once I lost sight of them, I didn’t see anyone else. Panic set in. (Again.) I half-expected that in a couple of months, you’d see my face on the side of a milk carton. I was on Butterworth, and I knew I was supposed to turn off  Butterworth at some point. But I didn’t know when or where. I was spent, I was incredibly thirsty, I’d been running for 2 1/2 hours, and I was ready to get back to the Y.

I stopped, unfolded the map, and, like a first-time visitor to a city, did the tourist head bop. You know how it goes: look down at the map, look up and your surroundings. Lood down. Turn the map 45 degrees. Look up. Despite the fact that I thought I knew that the Y was to the left of Butterworth, I hung a right when it dead-ended at Front Ave.

After a couple of blocks, I asked a couple of kids for directions, and they pointed in the opposite direction. So I turned around, frustrated with myself and my genetic predisposition for not being able to read a map! and continued on my trek.

It was a comedy of errors. Turning right instead of left. Continuing forward instead of turning. All I know is that I found myself crossing what I think was the Fulton Street Bridge. I’m bad with directions, but this, I knew, was wrong. So I ask a guy fishing off the bridge for help.  “Turn around,” he said, “go to the second traffic light, and turn right.”

And so I did. And there it was. The David D. Hunting downtown branch of the YMCA. It was like Mecca, standing proudly in the midday sun, just a couple of blocks away.

I’m not worried about getting lost on race day. Everyone will be pointed in the same direction. It’s when I have to go from Point A to Point B, and then back to Point A, that I struggle with.

But I think I have a solution. I’ll never improve my sense of direction. Maps are helpless. So I’ll be watching the fliers from D&W, wait for a sale, then buy a dozen loaves of bread. Stuff them in my backpack. And leave breadcrumbs in my wake. Follow the breadcrumbs back to Point A. I think it’s foolproof.

But then there’s that possibility of being trailed by a flock of hungry birds. Hmmm. Anyone want to pitch in for a GPS?

5 Comments so far...

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website