The unfortunate part was that that sign was at the start of my run. For this semester, I am living with a wonderful host family. When I chose to go for my run, I wanted to run away from all of the lights and the people . So, I ran toward the city line. My plan was to go out for 15 minutes and then turn around and come back the way I had come. But before my 15 minutes was up, I reached a T in the road. The left side let to a busy high way and the right looked like it curved around back towards my house, so I went right. As I go around the bend, I get into a neighborhood that I believe to be the same neighborhood that I had run through the night before, when I had been on a 2 mile run with my roommate Robert. So I continued on my way, looking for the intersection we turned down the last time we had come this way.
The intersection never came. As I reached my 15 minute turn around time, I was still under the impression that I knew where I was, so I continued onward thinking that I was maybe 10-15 minutes away from my house. 10 to 15 minutes later though, I was looking at a 400 meter hill with a 15% upward slope on it (I know this because there was a sign saying so for the large trucks that traverse the two lane road I was on). I knew that I had not gone up a hill last night, nor had I gone down a hill when I originally started my run. Even though I was supposed to be done with my run by now, my pride kept me going on in hopes that I would climb this hill and then just climb right back down on the other side and end up at my house. I jogged up the hill.
When I reached the top I was in a town I did not know. I found a stoplight that seemed to be connecting two major roads and turned the way that I supposed would take me home the quickest. On the outside, I tried not to show my anxiety, but on the inside, a trickle doubt began to creep over my spine. I was lost.
Luckily, as I ran down this unknown road in an unknown city that speaks an unknown language, I found a bus stop. In Germany, I found out this night, all of the bus stops have maps of the routes of the buses that stop there. There were three buses that stopped at this particular stop. I knew where only ONE of the stops was. Only one! And I was on the exact opposite side of the bus's loop from that one stop. Either way I went, it was a long way home. But I couldn't complain because I had gotten myself into this all by myself. So, I counted myself lucky, found the direction of that bus stop, and continued jogging down the road.
I went through 2 towns and a forest, stopping at every bus stop to make sure I was still on the right path. The towns were nice, sometimes there would be something on the sidewalk, but I would get around it just fine; not many cars were on the road. It was the forest that was strange. Going in, I did not know if I was still on the right road even though I had stopped and checked a sign just before going in. There was no sidewalk but there was a large side lane that had been cleared of snow when the road was. So I ran against traffic like I was supposed to. Fortunately, half way through I saw a sign for Putzchen and I gave a large sigh of relief. I was almost there.
The rest of the jog was uneventful. I found the intersection that I was originally looking for at the beginning of my run and hurried my way back to the house. I was so happy to be home. The entire time I had been avoiding my watch, not wanting to know how long I had been gone. When I finally reached my door, it had been 1 hour and 15 minutes since I had left the house, two and a half times longer than I had originally planned. I went inside to find that nobody was home, just like it had been when I'd started. I mapped my loop out to 10.1 km (6.3 miles).
I was pretty freaked out around point C and D and when I went into the forest around point E. But if I look on the bright side, I now have a nice training loop to help me reach my half marathon goals, I got to experience the beautiful countryside of Bonn, Germany by night, and I got a nice workout out of it. In the end, I find that I am ok with getting lost in a new place. I may even seek it out and enjoy it! I just have to make sure that I always find my way home in the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment