Accidental Seven

Today was the first nice day in what seems like forever. It was sunny, relatively warm (which is anything over 35^o these days), and beautiful. Throughout my entire day of classes, all I could think about was taking advantage of the sunshine and going for a run later in the afternoon. I loosely mapped out a route and headed out.

I ventured on a new running path down to the Arno River and past the school. It’s always fun to explore the city by running through it, and I loved running along the river for a bit. I was on the home stretch and feeling great until I decided to take a new way home. I ventured down a new street thinking it would loop around to my house, but as I kept running I realized it definitely did not and I was in fact lost! At this point it was getting dark and closing in on dinner time. I ducked into a nearby pharmacy and asked them how to get back to my street in broken Italian.

The first words out of the pharmacists mouth was “molto longo”, meaning very far… not exactly what I wanted to hear at this point. Fortunately the workers there were very helpful and even drew me a little map on how to get back to a familiar street. I ended up having to go back the way I came and take a long route home, all the while trying to make it home for dinner on time – a great way to make sure I kept my speed up! I made it home right in time for dinner, although I was very tired after running much farther than I had intended. After a delicious squash soup, frittata and salad dinner, I mapped out my run to see how far I had gone – 7 miles...on accident. At least it was a great workout!