This Always Happens To Me

Due to a momentary three-month lapse of reason, I've been training for the Dublin Marathon which falls on October 25 of this year.  It's not my first marathon, but it's the first I've attempted while in the middle of an intercontinental move.  As it turns out, I'm scheduled to run my 19- and 20- mile runs just as I've arrived in Oxford, with no knowledge of the city and its environs.

I set off this morning fully intending to find the Thames riverbank and just follow the water for eight or ten miles before turning back, completing a neat little loop.  I soon discovered that, although the map of Oxford looks quite large, Oxford itself is very small.  Compared to your typical sprawling American metropolis, you don't have to travel far to get from point to point.

What I'm trying to say is, I ran right past the river and not only did I fail to find my jogging path, but I ran myself straight out of town.

I doubled back and tried again to find the route.  It had all seemed so clear when I researched it on Google Earth.  I found something that approximated my desired cycling path, but which once again proved itself wrong.  Now I was running through a grand meadow, on something which signs reassured me was a "public footpath", but which clearly led me straight through a cow pasture.

After twelve miles, though, "clearly" is a relative term.  I was tired and only halfway paying attention to my surroundings.  I made the discovery by force: One moment I'm running, the next I have come face to face with a giant English milking cow.

This can't be right, I thought to myself, looking around.  Cows were surrounding me.  I assumed I had taken a wrong turn.  But, to my surprise, I saw there were English folks wandering all over the cow pasture just as I was.  There was even another runner, the first I've seen since arriving in England.  No one else seemed worried about the grazing livestock, and the animals seemed fairly unconcerned about them.

Meanwhile, the cow was chewing its cud and looking back at me blandly from the middle of my road.  I had not been expecting this.  I've been wrestling my instincts to over-domesticate loose cows since India, and again I felt the urge to find this cow's owner and let him know his animals were going wild.

That's it, I decided.  I've run far enough.  And next time, I'm going to need a map.