Found and Lost

Last week, a girl named Natalie who works at Madeleine's (my daily stop for drip coffee before work) told me that my running and training for Nike had "inspired" her, and she had decided to train for a half-marathon herself. Natalie is about 21 (that's my uninformed guess) and is apparently fairly active (she plays soccer and she certainly looks fit). I certainly never guessed that I would inspire someone else to run--as I am not as fast as I would like and my gait is still a bit spazzy--but it certainly helped me find some motivation to keep training and fundraising.

Despite having "found" motivation, I got lost during yesterday's run. Literally. I was down in Walla Walla, a town with which I am not too familiar, visiting Andrew Roberts.* While Andrew was working, I went for my scheduled training run--believing that I could take a decent loop from his place and end up back there after about 4 miles.

That was a mistaken belief. I headed out--maintaining a good pace and exploring the residential portions of Walla Walla--but, after about 4 miles, I realized that I had no idea where I currently was and where my current location was in relation to where I wanted to be (back at Andrew's). I ended up running for close to 3 more miles before I finally found his place. Incidentally, I was within a few blocks of the house for the majority of the last 3 (additional) miles, although I managed to keep missing the house. At least I got in a good workout before stuffing my face with Mexican food later that night.**

*Andrew was my running partner for the "vomiting-up-pancakes run" from early August.
** I need the carbs for training. Don't judge.