running around the heath

(...and i very much mean "around," despite my most diligent efforts to go into this 790-acre, most elevated park in the city...)

it finally occurred to me this morning why i'm reluctant to go running in london. yes, i'm more out of shape than i'd like to be. yes, every morning i sit up in bed and gaze wistfully out onto the bright green courtyard that would be striped with morning sunlight if it wasn't pouring. but i've done distance running in literally the worst weather imaginable from the seventh grade onwards and a couple puddles don't bother me anymore. no, no: every time i set out to try a much-researched loop in the direction of the heath, i feel a pang of terror that i won't be able to find my way home.

with good reason, as i've gotten lost literally every time i've gone running here. it's an unfortunate and unavoidable conglomeration of factors: my sense of direction is more of a suspicion of direction; on principle (despite all logic) i refuse to ask for help; i also refuse just to run straight up the main road and back again because the area is so interesting; and there is not a single right angle between intersecting roads on the entire 19 pages of my london A-Z for my neighborhood (i checked). it is all frighteningly like a labyrinth, as I never know what direction I'm facing, and there are no spaces to peer through between buildings on each block. every time i do make it to another intersection, i look right, then left, and instead of having a clear view of the road's path, it veers or curves and i'm left staring at another solid wall of old buildings and an old lady watering her begonias.

this morning i set out to do the two miles to a running track in the heath, do a few 400s (for which i have been strangely nostalgic), and go back home. no problem. so i got my google walking directions, memorized the 10+ turns and veers and subtle forks, and set out. of course after about turn 3 i stop recognizing names and rely on my direction suspicions to find the edge of the heath, which is probably 5 miles of a solid wall of woods to the north-west. nope. i found three tube stops on different lines, four schools, a statue of a woman inexplicably bending over in what looked like a toga, but no heath.

next time i'm carrying my A-Z when i go on a run. yes, i will look ridiculous, but maybe it will finally lead me to the expansive yet quite clandestine center of this london labyrinth.....