Well, I was in a similar position yesterday.
Except I was on a bike.
On a group ride.
In the Surrey Hills.
The short version of the story goes like this:
- lag behind
- get dropped
- lose sight of others
- take scenic detour home
The long version is more akin to this:
- take part in women's Surrey Hills bike ride
- join second (of four) group of riders
- lag behind after 35km
- get re-attached (courtesy group leader who upped my speed to 45kph merely by putting a hand on my back and pushing me whilst I pedalled like the energizer bunny)
- fall back again during first climb on Newlands Corner
- lose sight of the others
- wait for next (third of four) group of riders
- watch them whizz past
- fail to catch them
- lose sight of them too
- proceed to seek own route to Leith Hill
- fail
- try to find route to Box Hill
- fail
- ride through Abinger, Effingham, East Horsley, West Horsley, Ripley
- repeat
- three times
- with a variety of alterations including bastard hill, aka White Down Lane
- swear at phone map which asks what method of transport am I using: bus, car or walking
- watch battery reach 'critically low' level
- wonder whether OH would mind collecting me in the car
- decide I would never hear the end of it and hence veto
- take many more wrong turns
- finally recognise a familiar sight
- get home after some six hours in the saddle and this:
Today my thighs feel like they have been injected with silicone cement and I have developed a particular hatred of the foam roller (ironically the best cure).
I am walking in a peculiar manner, but at least it is not the walk of shame.
Just the walk of clueless navigation.
