Runner's World

ILLUSTRATION: PIETARI POSTI 1. UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO

022 RUNNERSWORLD.CO.UK JUNE 2018

come in from my run grinning with the pleasure of it.

‘Where did you go?’ asks my husband Jeff. We’re on holiday

and just getting to know our surroundings.

‘Down the zigzag track then up the path that turns back on

itself and through that dingly dell.’

He looks blankly at me.

‘Down the zigzags...’ I begin again.

‘Yes I know the zigzags’ he says impatiently.

‘Then up the path that takes a hairpin bend off the road...’

His eyes f loat upwards: he’s following my route in his head.

‘Then through that bit with the overhanging branches covered in moss.’

This evidently doesn’t tally with his own mental map so he asks ‘Which

path did you take out of the clearing?’

‘What clearing?’

‘At the top of the path there’s a clearing with three different trails off it.

Which did you take?’

‘I don’t know’ I shrug as if it doesn’t matter – although I feel as if I’ve

failed some kind of test. ‘It felt like straight on to me.’

By now both our moods have soured. But it’s not our fault that we can’t

share this visual joyride. We simply see the world differently – and the

map that each of us has created of this place in our mind’s eye is unique.

Mental maps aren’t clinical like paper ones. They are shaped not by 2cm

squares but by the experiences we accrue as we run: here’s where I felt

scared by the remoteness of the trail; this is the route I ran the last weekend

I saw my nan before she died. We don’t just run a route we engage with it.

What intrigues me though is what each of us senses in a landscape –

what landmarks we choose to plot our journey. Research has shown that

navigation develops new grey matter in the part of the brain responsible

for complex spatial representation. In a 2006 study London taxi drivers

• tasked with holding an entire
  ‘A to Z’ of maps in their heads –
  were found to have more grey
  matter in this region of the brain.
  Jeff orienteered at a national
  level as a junior before taking
  degrees in geography and town
  planning. It’s no wonder he sees
  landscapes in terms of topography
  and compass points. I spent most of
  my childhood getting lost – literally
  or with my head in a book – and I
  still find it hard to recreate even my
  most well trodden running routes
  in my mind’s eye. I can picture the
  beginnings and ends and recall
  random landmarks – a majestic oak
  a dead owl a discarded teddy – but
  some of the middle miles are missing.
  It’s the equivalent of losing your
  GPS signal in a tunnel.
  However dodgy my mental maps
  are though I can trust my feet to
  link together the missing pieces
  once I’m out there. And thankfully
  it’s not because I’m relying on GPS
  which scientists believe may erode
  our mind-mapping skills. When
  Japanese researchers^1 tested the
  navigational prowess of their
  subjects on six routes using either
  GPS a paper map or direct
  experience they found those using
  GPS made the most mistakes and
  afterwards were the least able to
  sketch a map of where they’d been.
  Other researchers have voiced
  concerns that GPS is causing us to
  disengage from our environment.
  A couple of days after ‘nav-gate’
  Jeff and I are running together
  through dense forest and we keep
  losing the path. ‘Ah it’s this way’
  I suddenly say confident because
  I’ve run this way before on my own
  and remember having to crawl
  through the mud under a fallen
  branch. ‘Do you think you came
  this far?’ Jeff asks doubtfully.
  ‘Yes. I remember seeing a Diet
  Coke can on the ground.’
  Moments later we pass the can.

WHAT SAM...

Attended...

The Balanced

Runner's

Feldenkrais

and running

workshop in

London with

Jae Gruenke

(balancedrunner.

com).

Ran...

A half marathon

in which I was

neck and neck

for much of the

way with a man

in Donald Trump

fancy dress.

To o k p a r t i n ...

The London

Peaks Relay –

the challenge

thought up by

RW’s own Rick

Pearson to race

to the highest

point in every

London borough

in under 24 hours

• a distance
  of 150 miles
  (see p36).

I

Mu r ph y’s L o r e

BY SAM MURPHY

WE DON’T JUST RUN A ROUTE

WE ENGAGE WITH IT