By Alice
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I was stuck in hellish traffic with the minutes ticking away and Drama Queen riding pillion making life tricky to duck and dive through the melee. It was raining and I doubted we’d make it by 5.
Thankfully we fronted up just as Kwaz started his hare brief out front of Kwaz Mansion to a decent sized pack.
Trail was laid on chalk marks on posts, walls and tarmac, not all sizeable or easy to see but as long as the pack used their eyes and called, it mostly went pretty well.
Basically trail headed out and turned left back towards the Old City. A circle short of the moat went back on itself and soon we were running thru sois before heading east along the moat next to busy traffic ponking fumes.
I was mid pack, Tasty, Sexy and visitor Kim were in the van, Blows Herself and Dodgy Cock right up there. Softballs, Shagless and Sticky were shifting too and we headed into the far south west corner of the Old City.
I turned left at a junction and meandered down looking furiously for arrows. Looking, looking!
Why are you shouting Looking? There’s a circle at the junction! Shiite. An orange circle partially washed out had been missed by Alice and others. Sod’s Law the On On was that way and Sex Pistol called it. A Yank called out, ‘Wow! Is this the hash?!’ as we passed a shop. Great enthusiasm.
Poo and Blows Herself crossed the eastern ring road and found trail. Some of us headed over the footbridge, others played chicken with their lives.
Drama Queen was doing well and Piggy too, but Babe and Cougar and visitor Jamie were never far behind.
Trail ducked in to a wet, grassy open area next to a small football facility and we crossed a klong on a narrow double girder footbridge. Concrete here was slimy and slippery. The pack were bunched and people yelled out to be careful of slipping on the algae growth.
The trail came back to the ring road at the extreme SW corner and here it unraveled a tad. TMB, Poo and other turned right and ran off in a bunch. No one called. They were now too far away to hear anyway. Traffic noise was king. No calls. No signs. No teamwork. Not a look at us. We at the circle saw them go, stop, go again towards the big footbridge. I decided they were On On and marked the check accordingly with chalk. Suddenly one FRB was running across the bridge, one heading back, then all heading over. Wtf?
I reckoned they weren’t actually on and scribbled again on the check. Why the fcuk didn’t they spread out and relay call or sign?
They all followed my leader, bunched up and apparently none were on!
Suddenly Jamie picked up Shrek signalling OnOn from across the three lane highway with streams of vehicles piling by. We took our lives in our hands and made it across after minutes to find trail leading thru a park area and up, along and over a section of old, old city wall according to Kwaz. The up was muddy, steep and slippy and rather challenging.
Dropping down into a small residential area – with residents agog – we came out into a wide market area and lost trail. Luckily we knew where A was from here and a few hundred metres without arrows until they were picked up again leading towards the HHH sign at the turn to Kwaz’s moobaan. No On In was seen, so I helpfully chalked one on the trailer close the the A just before the last turn.
Kwaz got an ear bashing from TMB about paucity of markings and danger and I got one when I mentioned that her group ran bunched up without signalling from the last check on the West side! I felt it would have been more helpful to shout at the following runners to go back and sign that they were checking not on.
All in all a very decent 6.2 km city run. We should do 3 or 4 a year, maybe not in peak rush hour traffic and definitely not have checks requiring runners to cross 3 busy lanes of speeding traffic.
The pool helped cool runners down and late arrivals swelled our ranks to farewell the Kwaz. Kudos to the hare, Frozen Dick, Does Nothing, Squidgy Cock, TMB etc for their roles in a great barbq, replete with burgers and tube steaks, salads, desert and and and.
OnOn and fair winds and calm seas to you Kwaz!
Alice