AM I WEIRD OR WAS THIS FUN?

AS I SAT in the passenger seat of my friend Tom’s blue Mazda—with a teal bandana tied tightly around my face—I thought: I hope no one calls the police. After all, I could have been mistaken for an abductee.

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The blindfold was intentional. A few months earlier, I complained about how the local greenways where I often do my long runs are great, but had been getting old. So Tom and I came up with a semi-crazy idea to spice it up. He’d blindfold me and drop me off somewhere outside our town of Easton, Pennsylvania. Then it would be up to me to find my way back home—without the use of GPS or outside help (though I did have my Garmin watch and phone, just in case things went sideways and I needed to bail).

We settled on a Sunday during the beginning of my New York City Marathon build when I had 15 miles on the schedule at whatever pace I wanted. We hypothesized that a spot nine miles out of town (as the crow flies) would give me some buffer in case I made wrong turns. So on a hot August morning, we hopped into the car and set out for a drop-off in the unknown.

I felt confident during the ride. I pride myself on my sense of direction, and I have ridden my bike on many of the roads near Easton.

I was about to learn a lesson in humility. After I took off the blindfold and my eyes adjusted to the morning sun, I got the first look at my surroundings: a narrow road between a thick forest of trees and a verdant field of what seemed to be soybeans. Tom let me pick a direction, then drove the opposite way. And off I went.