The other piece of this running story needs to acknowledge that I don't often set out from my house for a run just letting my feet take me wherever they'd like to go. I'm not a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants sort of a person. I don't sit down and map out every run, but in my town I have a 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 mile set of roads I run on. For giggles, I sometimes run the route backwards. So running without a plan is pretty unusual for me.
So I'm visiting my hometown of Holland for a couple of days, helping my parents clean some stuff out of their house. They've lived in the same house since 1965, and they've accumulated some stuff. So the stuff has to be cleaned out. We've made some headway in a closet and a room of the basement in the last two days, but this promises to be a months-long project.
I got up yesterday morning here (Holland, MI) knowing I needed to run 45 minutes on the Dopey Training plan. Normally when I run in Holland, I head out South Shore Drive. There's a bike path out that way that doesn't require as many stops for traffic as the roads in downtown Holland. But yesterday, I thought I'd head over towards Hope College and Holland Municipal Stadium (the site of some of my most triumphant soccer moments twenty-five years ago in high school--cough). My plan was to run out and around the stadium and then make the next plan from there (see paragraph two here, folks. This is living life on the wild side for me.)
I ran the stadium (gorgeous!), and then I decided to head down towards the Holland Energy Park. I had seen someone walking on a new footpath there the day before, and I wanted to see where that path would take me.
As I ran up towards the path, I noticed a small "no trespassing sign" off to my left. I remember registering it in my mind and thinking that it was indicating that I wasn't to be going in this little group of construction trailers to my left. I also remember thinking that it was telling me I wasn't to go into the plant itself. Frankly, the positioning was pretty darn ambiguous, so I ran to the right--away from the no trespassing sign and towards the running path. Here's what I saw as I hit the path:
And then I came to these spots. Gorgeous, right?
And I was thinking to myself, "Man! This is really great! I'm so glad that they've done this. I'm totally going to bring my parents here for a walk. I wish they would connect this path to the downtown path, though..." and then, "I'm so glad I ventured out to find this new path..." (see paragraph 2 again.)
And as I was finishing the loop around to the front of the Energy Plant and getting ready to head back out to the main road (it runs right along the railroad tracks there--really gorgeous, honestly), I glanced up to my left and saw a tall, blonde-haired guy wearing dark clothing and a bright yellow vest running towards me from the entrance to the plant. I smiled and stopped and pulled my earbud out. And this interaction happened:
"Just so you know, you are trespassing. That path is closed to the public." (He's out of breath and is a bit agitated.)
"Oh, there weren't any signs. I didn't see any signs."
"Yes, you did! We have three signs. One there! (pointing at the ambiguous sign that I mentioned), one out there (pointing out towards the train tracks), and one over there (pointing again out towards the train tracks--never saw either of those signs)."
"I saw that first sign, but I thought it was for the plant entrance, so I ran that way. And then I didn't see any other signs. You really need better signage."
"No. You were trespassing." (He's clearly agitated now). "And we have signs."
(Must pause here and point you back to the first paragraph. I'm a rule follower. Had I thought that I was trespassing, I never would have taken another step forward. So there's a part of me that's feeling badly that I've broken a rule at this point, but there's also a part of me that's irritated that 1) this guy is talking to me this way and 2) the signage is so inadequate that it's actually his own darn fault that I didn't know I was trespassing. Seriously, there was not a single sign all the way around the path).
At this point, the teacher and Challenge Course Manager who thinks about liability ALL THE TIME in me decides to take another angle: "I hope you are open to feedback here because you need better signs... Oh, wait. You are mad!" (I realize as I'm about to tell him that I think that his job would be a lot easier if he would just put up a couple more signs that he really isn't listening to me...).
He responds, "I'm not mad! But you are!" (Clearly, this is deteriorating quickly...)
At some point, he kind of pats his yellow Security vest and says something like, "This is my job. You trespassed, but you aren't in trouble."
At that point, I said, "Oh, well you have a great day," and I popped my headphones back in and ran off back out to the main street.
So that was a sour note. I'm left wondering how that interaction might have been better. Won't run that path again, I guess (or maybe they'll post signs saying that it IS open?). I do have to wonder why, if I was trespassing, they let me get all the way around the back of the plant and waited until I was back heading out to the main road again. Why not chase me down? Why bother telling me as I was leaving anyway? Can't really squeeze that toothpaste back in the tube. But also, what on earth was going on in that Security guard's world that he had to manage that conversation that way? (Simon Sinek might have some insight.)
Run on, though. Run on.
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