Running in circles

I got lost today, trying to follow a 10 mile route which on the map looked like a straightforward loop on minor roads outside my town. I feel like a bit of a failure as a Running Explorer- particularly since I also got lost yesterday, when a wrong turn into an unfamiliar housing estate meant scrambling down a bramble-covered bank onto a main road so that I could get my bearings again.

It's been eighteen months since we moved to Barnstaple, and I thought I was getting to know the surrounding area pretty well. I worked out recently that I've clocked up over 1300 miles of running around North Devon but this weekend my sense of direction has gone totally AWOL.

OK, it's hardly a big deal becoming disorientated in the passive British countryside; on both days the most awkward outcome has been that I've found myself emerging somewhere in town unexpectedly soon and had to add on a few circles round the block to make up my required mileage for the run, but the experience is disconcerting. Today when I emerged blinking at a busy local roundabout I was disappointed that my scenic run had been cut short and that the choices left open to me were retracing my steps, risking going further astray and repeating the unpleasant hills I'd just so proudly conquered, or admitting defeat and following the boring main road for the second time in two days, but the worst thing was that I couldn't work out where I'd gone wrong. I felt like the earth must have shifted underneath me, so sure had I been that I was taking all the available left turns which should have led me to the east side of my starting point, not the roundabout in the west... It was all too confusing for a tired body and Sunday-morning brain to figure out.

So I made the dull choice and did the circles to make up for it, and pored over the maps again as soon as I got home. But then, as soon as I saw the route on the page I realised what had happened and had that satisfying epiphany as the flat lines merged with the pictures of the reality in my head, and I was reminded of what being a Running Explorer is all about. I remembered how getting lost can actually be fun, and realised I hadn't been getting lost often enough lately. Maybe I have become complacent in thinking I knew this area well enough to have discovered some brilliant running routes, and was happy to keep repeating them without seeking out new territories. Perhaps this has been the push I needed to get out of this rut and put my expedition hat back on. Next week, somewhere new....