I didn’t expect to run, as work interferes with CH4 these days, but as luck would have it, I escaped and headed down to see what the Frenchman would do for us. Sadly I didn’t have running shows, so I stopped to buy beer on my way expecting to sit and drink with the hare while the hashers hashed. Gorf kindly lent me his shoes, and I ended up setting off as the pollution was much better!
The harebrief was clear, but not conforming to Chiang Mai traditions! We would have circle checks with false trails leading off them! It made sense to me, but heading off at the start, it seemed most people objected to this break from the norm! Why? Changes are good, and these checks are used throughout the world. I tried to explain to a few as we made our way to the first circle, but it was clearly going to be a clusterfuck, and sure enough trail was immediately called in 2 directions – neither of which was correct. I should have played percentages, but after a cross was called to the left, I was lured towards TMB’s call to the right, only to find her confused by another cross.
I didn’t plan to put much effort in, so I slowly followed trail through the middle of the pack. I was back towards the front as another Gorf check fooked people over. Another circle, and again called from both directions. I was tempted to go straight, as turning right would be too short, but I was already a bit to the right, and HRA hadn’t hit a cross yet. SO CW and I headed that way for 400m++ until we got to a cross, with the people ahead of us apparently disappearing silently through the trees back towards the real trail. I was torn…. Probably 1km back on trail at this point, with a clear short cut opportunity. I didn’t plan to run, I had beer in the car, I could easily… It took me a few minutes to decide to go back to trail and carry on. By then I was behind Tip Toe.
The trail was pretty clear from here on. The checks were already kicked out, and I jogged along wondering if I would catch up. I did get back to the pack when it got to the Beerstop – hastily added at the end of the run after the beer monster forgot to bring the beer the first time! :O
Overall it was nice heading back out on trail with the air a bit cleaner. The new checks were great – they are meant to fuck you up, so if they did, they worked, stop bitching about it! 😉
Beers consumed later with Belly are the reason for such a late write up!