Frozen teamed up with Turkish for a run back at the ball breaker runsite. It had been a good ball breaker, so I had high hopes Frozen would piece together a decent trail presumably using connects that he’d found but not used during the ball breaker. A little late we set off and almost as soon as we found paper, we lost it again. More missing paper? A missing check? A good 100m or so further on I found paper and we were off properly. Down a bit of a hill and a circle. Left would probably intercept the trail we’d just got off, but right was downhill, so I opted for left. Spotted a spiders web, and ducked under it as I checked slowly up the hill. When Sheep Shagger called on from down the hill I forgot about the spiders web, and ran straight into it. Damnit!
It was about then that the heavens opened. Cats and Dogs! Fook Me did it rain. I think we were following HRA, but calls were drowned out by the storm. I got ahead for a bit, and hit a V check. I figured we would go around the lake, so picked right. I ran past 100 and paper was good all the way down the hill into the distance. Nice! I ran on, until there was no more paper. 240m! 240 FFFing m! WTF? I finally saw evidence of what might have once been a rain drenched check back and had to make my way back up the hill. 240m??? WHY? With a small pack, the FRBs need some motivation – 100m is about right to slow them down, but 240m put me DFL, behind Belly Dancer and Tiptoe. An extra half km on my track for what? I cursed that evil Turk for most of the rest of the run, until I later found out that Frozen had done it. I wasn’t really in the mood to contribute at the front after that but slowly clawed my way back into it and eventually found Sheep Shagger completely befuddled at a check.
We seemed to be back on the last leg of the ball breaker, which helped me get a couple right, but then a circle and Sheep shagger kindof calling to the left. “kind of” – not enough to make me tear down paper and mark the trail. When I got to him, he was stood staring at a single strip of paper, around 50m from the check. He’d spent 5 minutes hunting around for anything else. Screwed up hares fucked it up. I got out to the road about when HRA was calling. I chased him down and this was definitely the BB trail. How good was my memory? Sheep Shagger surely had an advantage as he’d hared the BB, I was relying on what I could remember, and assuming it would follow the same route.
Great trails, had they not been so wet. On the one hand the rain cooled us off, on the other it made the mud unpredictably slippery. Along an overgrown trail that had looked so much clearer so many months before, and SS was braver than me. Again I caught him as he was stood transfixed at a circle. Shouldn’t he be checking? Doesn’t he remember where to go? Apparently not, as it looks different now. I remembered the drop off to the right, and picked up paper again. Now we had a small group clear from the pack, and my memory kicking in. I nailed a few checks, especially the check that had cost me so dear back in January – you weren’t catching me again on that one!
Up hill a bit, and then back down, edging to the left. Finally I got one wrong, but it seems the rest were following and also got it wrong. I hacked my way over to the other option and sure enough picked up paper. ON ON down to the dam, and we were nearly home. Straight on for sure, and yes paper again. Another circle at the end, and it had to be the check that Greasy got right in January. I cut down, up and around and got to another circle after 100m. Trail coming from the right meant there had to be an extra loop. Should I go back? Nah, F*ck this sh*t, I was around the corner to the ONIN and shortly back to the beer.
Nice set! I reset part of my BB trail earlier in the year, but I waited 3 years before I did! Today was very familiar!