So, we had a virgin hare, but she’d recruited the experience of Wooly Jumper, so surely it would be ok? A nice runsite, with a nice garden for the kids to run around in, but it was ominously close to the main roads, so I wondered where the run would go! Sure enough we were directed out onto the main road, so I ran along with Banana Wiggler for a bit. Paper continued a long way along the main road, until I got to the On-In! Hmmm… Something was wrong – it had seemed like we were following the paper the wrong way – always being behind the tree, not in front of it…
I turned back and we started exploring other random turnings, looking for paper. Suddenly Anything ran off in the direction of the On-In… huh? That can’t be it – I’ll jog back and ask the hares what to do – perhaps the directions should have been left on the road, not right – an easy mistake! I got back to the “A” (having seen the On-In), and there were no hares! The beer cooler was looking at me, but I resisted and went back to look for paper. Graven, Humperdick, Stan and I mingled around for a bit and then set off back towards the OnIn – if necessary we can do it backwards, right?
Just before the OnIn the trail had changed and was now leading down a small soi, just next to the OnIn… Damnit! I had 2.5km on the GPS and I hadn’t seen a check yet! The chase was on, and Graven & Stan took off ahead of me. I soon started catching people, and slowly made my way through the walkers. Surely there would be a check soon that would slow them down? It dawned on me that the hares had made the rookie mistake of many DFLs. When they get to circle checks, normally there is paper leading away from it, so to save the FRBs the hassle of kicking checks out and laying paper for those following, the hares had decided to do it for us!!! Such kind hares!!!
With no chance of catching the leaders, I set a steady pace and just kept jogging. Eventually I hit the main road, and jogged for about a km before I saw the On-In, and then another km or so back to the A. I did a bit over 7km, and most of it was on the main road! I do remember a short loop through an orchard though…