Perhaps it was a bad sign when we got lost about 6 minutes into our run. Maybe we should have turned back then and avoided the entire situation. But, unfortunately, we had no way of knowing what was to come.
My brother and I set out for a trail run up in Bear Mountain State Park (in New York) early this past Sunday morning. The run itself was great. Besides getting terribly lost every 15 minutes or so (we had to sit over a map for 10 minutes after the run just to figure out where the heck we went), it was a nice route. We climbed ‘The Timp,’ a very steep ascent which provided a rewarding view of the Hudson River and Manhattan in the distance.
And then, while we were about 10 minutes from where my car was parked, I checked my water bottle for the keys.
As you may have guessed already, they were not there.
We were, to put it bluntly, screwed.
We ran past the car until we found someone who worked for the park, and he called the police. They broke us into the car and we decided to call a locksmith instead of towing the car back to Long Island (over an hour away). While this was happening, the police officer who was helping us got a call from a hiker who actually found our keys. Incredibly lucky as that was, nothing came of it; the hiker must have walked out of cell phone range and we couldn’t get through to him again.
I won’t put you through the same agony my brother and I went through, so I’ll summarize briefly.
Four hours, $500, and quite a bit of frustration after the end of our run, a locksmith managed to create a new key and start the car.
An hour and a half later I was home. And already planning our next trail run.
We the Runners 