Beware the Young Turks – and an older one!
The deviously devilish HRA and the confidently cunning Brownfinger combined their myriad talents to produce a masterful run for the boys of CH3.
We were out 11.5 down Canal Rd behind Suckit’s ranchero and hopes were high. I wasn’t disappointed. In fact the run had more than everything.
Hare brief stated runners were on Graven Ass strips while walkers would transfer to powder at the split and not rejoin. Apart from Frozen Dick of course. Not sure why people don’t just listen to the brief without trying to trip up the hare but a few half minds were chuntering on and trying to disrupt BF’s discourse.
Away we went up thru the orchard on TMB and Foxy’s old trail. Into the bush, down past the pastel green reservoir and after some tricky turns and checks into forest. We crossed some burnt areas and tempting streamed junctions. Here I got a couple of checks right and got ahead going along and up a blackened ridge.
Eventually we turned left but I went on to the FT and suddenly I was mid pack with SpitzSpunk and Graven and Chucky in the van. It was good running trail now, well marked and we sweated thru the accumulated heat of a hot day. Then a circle where things unraveled aa tad.
On on was called from front right but there seemed no trail. BF warned about some bush whacking so maybe…I dropped paper in the overgrown unburnt hillside as we descended but then it ran out and we weren’t on any trail. God help the guys coming behind! Then a False Trail shout from down there. Fcuk!
Bashing thru the bush we found plenty of paper in a streambed at the bottom and went left onto lovely connecting trails over stone and sand with the dappled light of early evening shading our perspiring cranii and heaving chests.
We hit a circle after a straight run down a leafy path. Pack spread, I go straight and Spitz takes the sneaky left turn that TMB employed recently and I missed twice. He finds pink paper but not ass crack white. Chuck Wao was away right, closer than he knew to true trail but we hear a faint On call from a mysterious large red object with a Fallsburg NY accent, way ahead thru the trees. I keep jogging and turning back to check for paper but none. Strange, 180m no paper strange. The large red object was becoming distinct, it was like Bigfoot all over again.
We burst out of covered forest to find Frozen boasting he’d been on runners’ trail all through and had aced 6 checks without disturbing them for us. We sauntered past to a torrent of kvetching about how dare we pass while he’s laying paper to join trail!
An excellent FT knackered me again and trail took off left down a concrete dam and up a charred hillside to a building. We weren’t too far away now.
Spitz actually run up the steep hill ahead to show Graven his power while I guarded the circle. Chuck Wao was away right on the adjoining property. Turkey was somewhere around but disappeared off the radar. Spitz called In On On and we were up the hill and suddenly around fences and properties and wide tracks.
The next circle on the corner foxed Chuck and Graven and they went straight and right. The obvious main path was left so I took that and sure enough paper.
As we approached a familiar property with new fence and gate, Graven yelled On In from behind me! I started to up my pace as the Oregonian gained on me and tried to put me off with his blather. To no avail! I won! I was Mo Farrah! David Bedford! David Hemery! Actually I was just Alice, and water not gold, my reward.
35 minutes later and well after everyone else, a bedraggled, bloody and desperate Turkish Delight staggered in, red eyed, soaking in sweat, exhausted, without water, limping and beside himself with frustration, anger and indignant rage for some reason. He was as ever, a GM’s dream.
The truth will out. The Turk had not only sniffed around pre-run but boasted he’d found the On In and knew exactly which way we’d go and how to come home. This son of Attaturk not only went off paper deliberately because he ‘knew’ the way to shortcut but he added a couple of clicks and inflicted half an hour of pain suffering and loathing on himself.
The Turkey had certainly come home to roost. Christmas and Thanksgiving had definitely come early for the GM.
On on,
Alice