"You're not even on that map"

No vacation, including our weekend jaunt to Boston, would be complete without a little exercise so exercise we did. We walked a total of about 7 miles over the course of the trip and on Sunday I, unlike Ms.Pappas who had time to run during the week, had a 10 miler to complete.

I was so excited when I went to mapmyrun.com because the route I chose went through all of my favorite parts of Boston (doubled back through Fenway of course) and was exactly 1o miles.

I started on my way with a map, a camera, a water bottle and 12 dollars in case I got lost and needed to get a cab back home...and get lost I did. I started with a run through Fenway......then the directions said to turn right but it looked like that would take me away from the water so I turned left...two miles and three wrong turns later I was back at Fenway and made the right turn I should have in the beginning. I then ran along and found this...I continued to run until I realized that the name of the street I was on had changed and I couldn't find it on my map. It was also getting hotter and I had run out of water and didn't know how far I had gone. I stopped into a convince store and bought a new water and was going to ask for directions but the cashier didn't speak English so I just kept running...until I saw this...
My surroundings started to get a little ghetto and that sign freaked me out so I stopped and tried to find where I was on a bus map (I did this literally 20 times on my lovely little run)...as I was trying to figure it out some nice man asked if I needed directions. I asked if he could tell me where I was on this map and he said..."Oh well this is a map of Boston and Cambridge" and I said, "Ya so?", and he said..."Well you aren't in Boston or Cambridge, you aren't even on that map"...I had run straight out of Boston! He pointed me in the right direction but definitely looked stoned and a little shady but seeing as how I only had $0.50 (a $10 had fallen out somewhere along the way for some lucky Bostonian to pick up later), my running shoes and an empty water bottle I had no choice but to follow the directions.

Low and behold, one mile later I came across this...I happily bounded across the bridge to the Harvard campus and ran along the water...
At one point the water disappeared and I started to freak out again. I slowed down and started to panic but then I saw this in the distance...This Citgo sign is right next to Fenway which meant right next to home. I kept going in that direction until I came across the Harvard bridge and ran across it....

I was back on the BU campus and had finally found my way home!I sprinted the last portion of the way home and through the Fenway area where a game was about to start so all the fans were out.

I was a little concerned that I had only run 5 or so miles but as we were walking later that day my legs burned the way they do after very long runs so I was excited to go home and see how far I had made it. Despite my lost way and my lack of knowledge of how far I had gone or had to go, I ended up running 9.3 miles in two hours (including major stops for directions)!

Hurrah for running adventures in new cities, helpful strangers and finding my way home!