Cuckold seems to like the area by the Sameong Road football field… He was enjoying a beer at a local bar as we showed up, wondering what he had in store. Pre-run, my only hope was that we didn’t have to climb the temple steps…. How soon do such aspirations fade?!?
The hare took a cane to bully us into a school boy hare brief – he would be sozzled, but was he sozzled already? We were pointed off, and rather than taking the usual river crossing, we had a little paddle (or foot spa). Paper was a little thin, but we managed to piece the trail together to the edge of the rice fields. They looked great! So different from last time I was there, someone is clearly putting some attention into them. I chose right, trying to spot paper in the distance… Nothing… When I finally saw powder it took me a moment to figure out we were on paper and powder. On on, and I was off with Lumber JO not far behind.
No checks through a couple of opportunities, and then powder straight up a steep climb. It was early days, so I decided to run it, and went into a small canyon / gorge? There was a circle check. It was a very strange place for a check. I was suspicious straight away. My gut said, go back, but being first there, I thought I should carry on. I started up the hill to the right, but then LJO cut in front and headed that way – he never came back… Instead I checked down to the left, facing off a fierce pitbull. Nothing there. Back up the hill, and I joined HRA as we tried to see where LJO had checked. Brownie came back down the hill, so we started exploring out into the plantation. No sounds apart from the odd “checking” or “RU?”. I got to the far side of the plantation, and kept scanning the horizon for paper – nothing. Poo called “RU?” from further away to my right. “Checking” was my forlorn reply. I realised there were no more “checking” calls from behind me, so headed back to the circle, which had already been kicked out. Muthafukas! I turned back to call Poo, and he was following me past the attack dog. An excellent check, where the acoustics just didn’t help the callers.
I turned the corner and could see 400-500m ahead, and no hashers. We were seriously behind. I pressed on, assuming Poo would be following at some point. Finally I caught Tiptoe, just before the trail took and ominous turn UP. This was a serious climb. Nearly 200m height gain, in a bit over a km. More importantly, WHERE WERE THE CHECKS??? I was off the back of the pack, and no checks to give me a chance to catch up. I passed junction after junction, and there were no checks… WTF? Was this a race or a hash? Pushing up the hill I picked off a visitor and HRA, chest exploding.
Finally a Wimp Rambo split… but it looked more like a Rambo / Lemming split as the walkers seemed expected to throw themselves off the side of a cliff – a new level of sadism for the hare? The trail continued to climb, but finally I could see some hashers ahead. There must be a check – it looked more like a picnic to me from a distance, but before I could get there, they were continuing further up the hill. Luckily I could settle into a gear and slowly move forward. My break came at another check, where the majority of hashers wanted to head further up to the right. It had to break left, so I followed Brownie down to the left.
We were on, and it was down… Brownie jumped out the way to let me past, and finally we could open up. I charged down, straight through one check, trying to guess where the hare would cut us across to the rubber wall. It was inevitable. I was wrong. I went left one junction too early. Fortunately Graven was powered by gravity and went straight on at the next, even though we could see powder heading through the resort. So the hare avoided the temple steps, but instead took us up the resort steps… I was growing weary, and I knew we were a long way from home.
Over the hill and down to the rubber fence, so obviously left that he didn’t even bother with a check. No chance this pack was getting back together. And then a RR/WR split? That wasn’t in the hare brief. I saw Graven & Brownie heading back up the hill, and opted to go around. LJO joined me, but then he took off as I tried to just keep jogging along at a steady pace. It wasn’t long before GI & BF came back from their little adventure up the hill and past me. It was a straight on in with no chance of checks, but the hare was waiting to poison hashers with a toxic juice not long before the finish.
A tough 7.75km run with a serious climb,,, I guess the hare was thinking, better to be too long than too short….