A long run - without a compass

Man but I was hacked off this morning. First off I got delayed because the computer wouldn't work properly and I needed to get out the door on time if I was to run up to Hampstead Heath in time to meet the school (in the past I've been just a few minutes too late and that's truly frustrating). Then my stupid Garmin watch stopped working because its batteries were low even though I'd charged it up - this is the one truly annoying bug with this device. Finally I had to contend with a hangover from last night's party! So that's why I wound up pounding the Bishops Avenue at 7.45 this morning if anyone saw me.....

Anyway by the time I made it to Jack Straws Castle I'd forgotten these momentary concerns and was looking forward to continuing my long run with the elite Sunday group - Adam, Mike, Richard and Rob. The group numbers are always down on Sunday but that just means that we get to hustle along a little bit quicker and don't stop so much. It suits me fine. Today we headed north up through Golders Green and over towards North Finchley - taking in College Farm and the road curiously named "Crooked Usage":

 

A slice of the countryside, kind of

I've no idea where this name comes from (lost in the mists of time I suppose) but from here we had a pretty straight run back through the Hampstead Garden Suburb and the somewhat obviously named Big Wood and Little Wood. Maybe they'd just run out of inspiration by this point in the development of this artificial suburb? What was nice though was coming across a planned view from the Heathgate cul-de-sac over the Hampstead Heath extension. It really is quite pretty and the super-expensive houses (£2-3 million!) sited here really do benefit from an excellent location:

Also this extension to the Heath is a nice quiet place to run with the added benefit of providing some solid hill-work in amongst the trees (as seen in the picture above). From the top (and the end of the group run) I managed to bag a few more climbs (Parliament Hill and Fitzroy Park mainly) on the way back home and was quite surprised to find the clock hitting 10am when I staggered through the front door. So a longer run than expected mostly because I had no idea how long I'd been out or how far I'd gone in that time. Almost as strange I wasn't even that hungry or thirsty after being out for 2-and-a-half hours either; maybe it's all in the head?

Distance: 14-15 miles?

Time: 2h 15m?