Well folks, I had an interesting end to my Memorial weekend. I got lost while running. I can’t say it hasn’t ever happened before, but I can say this was my first time out in the woods. Boy was I getting nervous at the end. It started out like any other day; I worked during the day, then around 5 was ready to get a workout in. It was a beautiful day; sunny, barely a cloud in the sky, mid to high 70s and breezy enough to keep the bugs at bay. I decided to go trail running instead of heading to the gym to run on the treadmill. Also, there was a trail that I’ve never finished running and I wanted to explore the full length of it. I took off on my normal route, dreaming up a blog I was going to write about how running can be a form of self hypnosis. I came up with little pithy poems about how I can count back from ten to zero like a hypnotist giving myself commands to concentrate on in order to focus my attention on some aspect of running, and how by the time I reach zero I find myself bounding down a trail feeling like a deer or mountain goat just skipping along in the sunshine. The only problem is that by the time I reached zero, I was past my normal area where I turn around. So while I felt great, I didn’t have any kind of plan on where I was going or how long I would be gone for (because I had inconveniently forgotten everything for my run-barely had eaten that day, had guzzled a coffee but not much water, had no watch to keep track of time, had no cell phone service so I left it in my car, had no water source for while running etc. Basically it was me, my shoes, skimpy running shorts and a tank top and my car key tied into the string in the waist band of my shorts.)

“No problem!” I thought to myself in my ‘all the world is great’ optimism. “I’ll be ok!” And so I kept running. And running. And running. Eventually I hit what appeared to be the end of my trail. Another trail branched off the side and to my left, and, what I thought was my trail (even though I had seen no trail markers for a while) kind of meandered off to the right. Sort of. By meander I mean it looked like a trail for about five minutes, then narrowed into a single track trail, then finally petered out into what I would call a deer path. As in, not a path but what an animal track looks like. But, being me, I kept following it. I figured that if it had looked like a trail at the beginning, I must be hitting a part of the trail that isn’t often travelled or well maintained. Eventually brush started pushing in on the sides, my ‘path’ became nothing more than a narrow indentation in the ground foliage, and the ground cover started to look suspiciously like poison ivy. Lots and lots of poison ivy. I’ve already had two doses of poison ivy this summer from my research (on my neck and feet) and was not pleased by the prospect of having my legs continuously brushing up against the evil ‘leaves of three’ oiliness. Gross. But, like an addict, I kept running. Albeit now it probably looked a little goofy because there were downed trees every now and then that I had to skip over, stumps and brush hindering my forward motion and I had begun running with my arms kind of held up in the air like the “Victory” pose you see from athletes when they cross a finish line to prevent scratches and potential exposure… but I was still running.

Eventually I started going downhill and I thought that it must be a good thing because my ‘trail’ must eventually lead me back down and to my car. Yeah right. Instead it lead me into an area that wasn’t as brushy, but instead had inches and inches of leaves coating the ‘trail.’ By this point I considered turning around, but a little nigging thought in the back of my head said “where’s your sense of adventure? Are you such a big baby you can’t do a little exploring in the woods?” And on I ran. As I ran I began to notice the sun was sinking further and further in the sky, and I wasn’t feeling quite as warm. Instead I was pretty tired and thirsty. My feet started to stumble and wouldn’t stop. I bumped and blundered onward ever seeking the illusive trail. Eventually I rolled my left ankle on a rock that was hidden under all of the leaves and wiped out. Hard. The pain of falling while moving downhill woke me up and I started to seriously think about how I may have been a liiiitttle too optimistic and might have been a liiiitttle bit dumb in how I was going about this run. Especially since just over two weeks ago on the same trail (prior to my normal turnaround point) I had seen my first black bear of the year.

Suddenly all the creaks and groans of the trees began to sound rather ominous. I hadn’t seen another runner or biker since about 20 minutes into my run and realized that if I got any more lost I would be in some serious trouble. But by now I was too scared to turn back because the trail that I had been following wasn’t really visible behind me and I thought that if I tried to turn back I would probably get even more turned around by trying to run up a mountain looking for a trail that definitely wasn’t a trail. So I kept running. I stomped, slid and skid down some more, noticing an abandoned car off to my right (how does a car get out there when I barely can?!), a pile of shot-gun shells (what on earth are those used for?!) until I eventually hit an abandoned road. Grass grew up taller than my waist and I wondered what I was going to run into first; a hunter, bear or copperhead. The road to my right looked more sunny than the road to my left, so I took off. Twenty or so minutes later I thought I could hear the sound of cars and got excited. The sound turned out to be running water; a wide stream blocked my path. I could see the trail across the stream and stood there debating what to do. Then I noticed a post and what looked to be a sign on the other side. I couldn’t read it from where I stood, so I decided to cross the stream. The water rushed past me up to my knees, cold and unforgiving. My socks and shoes were now soaking wet and I shook my feet out hoping to get as much water out of them as possible. The sign turned out to just be a number carved into a post, and without a map or any knowledge of where I was, it meant nothing to me.

I decided to back track to where I had come out of the woods and head off to the left. Back across the stream I went soaking myself once again. I tried to be positive and tell myself that it would help my aching left ankle, but the reality was I was cold and wearing cotton socks. I tried to run, but my socks bunched up and I started to worry about blisters. Hopping/skipping back up the trail I kept my eyes open for signs of anyone else. Eventually I reached the divide and kept going…until I reached my second pile of shotgun shells. That was it for me. I didn’t know where the shells where coming from, when they got there, or who put them there. I was also not interested in finding out. I took off the way I had just come from as fast as my hobbling legs could take me. I forded the stream again, then took off on the trail to my right praying the whole time that God would send me a nice person who would tell me where I was. I came out to another road. To the left were abandoned couches and to the right was my trail. I took off to the right, forded the stream again and found myself emerging from the woods into a trailer/mobile home park. I jogged slowly down the road until I saw my first house, which also included about seven people who were sitting out on the front porch.

“Excuse me, I got terribly lost on my run and have no clue where I am. Could you tell me where Rice Pinnacle Trail is?” I asked.

“What?” one of the men replied.

“Rice Pinnacle Trail. In Bent Creek? I just need to find my way back. I’ve been running in the woods for a couple of hours and lost my way.”

The man starts laughing loudly. “Girl, you’re about a four hour hike away from that area. How lost did you get?”

Me: “Pretty lost. I think I ended up on a deer trail.”

Woman: “Here honey, I’ll take you back, you’ll never make it on foot before dark.”

The woman turned out to be Wendy and the man was her husband Davy. Wendy drove me back in her trusty blazer, gabbing the whole time while I sat embarrassed on the seat next to her. I’m sure I looked and smelled horrible after my adventure in the woods. She asked me what trails I had seen, and said Davy walked out on the mountains every day because his family used to own a lot of the land. She said that she didn’t join him much and that the only part she knew was an area where there was an old abandoned car…”I saw an old car! It’s hood was up and it was out in the middle of no where!” I blurted out.

“Oh you must have found Ol’ Grannie Trail,” she said. “It’s abandoned now. Good thing you found us, cause you were hiking through a bear sanctuary. You should be carrying some bear mace with you when you run.” Then she proceeded to tell me stories about her son hunting bear up the in woods this past fall during bow season and about the big ol’ black bear that frequents her apple tree while I silently melted into my seat. A bear sanctuary. Sheesh. Good thing I wasn’t spending the night out there!

Fifteen minutes later I was safely back at my car. Many sincere thank-you’s later she drove off with a cheerful wave. As I sat in my car guzzling water, I decided I was done having adventures for the day. While out on the trail I couldn’t help but think about how long it would take people to notice I was even missing, and how terrible it would be to spend the night out in the woods with no camping gear or supplies. Living out here is amazing, but after being lost in the woods for almost two and half hours, I was glad to make it back home to a hot shower and glass of chocolate milk.