I was nervous arriving at the runsite – I wasn’t feeling too strong, and there was a mini-ballbreaker in store… I am lacking fitness, and tired. Take it steady and you’ll be fine, I kept thinking to myself. Runsite, and no water… Turkey on his way we heard, but I needed more water. I went to the nearest shop to get some waters, and I definitely need to get a camelpak for the future. I bought 6 bottles, but all vanished quickly. Finally the hash water arrived as we were about to set off. I hadn’t prepared myself properly, all my fault.
I walked off at the start with Chuckie. When Knockout passed us, we debated whether to run along behind her, or to save our energy – definitely some utility theory came into play, but we carried on walking. All the way to the first check, and for now my idea of checking was circle guarding. First circle I finally picked a way to start to walk, but picked the wrong one, and was already behind. I broke into a jog to catch up. At the next check, I was the one who crawled under the barbed wire, just to find the old trails were overgrown and impassable. Chances were we’d be sticking to lower ground for a while, and when it was called, it was clear everyone had short cut as we should have gone to the right – with a collective pact with continued forwards – this is a ball breaker and if we can pinch a bit off the hares, surely it is in the collective good?
Then we started up the hill and straddled the hill. I slotted into mid pack to avoid the exertion of checking. A check took us up the hill, to another circle. The pack had spread out up the hill, ignoring the trail to the right that went down. Piggy opted for it, and it looked good to me. So good when I spotted something white way down the hill. Graven spotted it too, almost too vocally, but held himself back, as the 3 of us ran down while the like of Brownie were still climbing. There was paper, and it was our paper, time to call! And we were descending quickly. At the bottom there was a lake, and my brain was running different options, but decided it had to be the lake above 700 year stadium. Somehow I got to a circle check 2nd… This was going against strategy – Now I kind of had to do some checking… 
Fortunately Piggy had chosen the wrong way, so I got to check out the trail I would have picked anyway.
The checks were coming thick and fast – the way I like it. I was right, and with HRA behind I nailed a couple more. Damn… This wasn’t my plan at all… I was hot, in front, and still not feeling very good. We came out to the building site, and I missed a sharp turn to the left, but rejoined them in the construction yard. The bastards have cleared trees, so with the sun beating down I climbed up the hill. 100m? perhaps a bit more? Nothing. Shit, this isn’t good. I ran back down, still nobody calling. Perhaps it was all the way down past that noisy digger? Finally I saw people running across the construction yard, and tried to follow suit. I joined Crap Thai, but it wasn’t feeling good, and he took off. We got to the trail towards HTT and I could just about hear them ahead of me. I caught them at the corner where the waterfall trail goes up, up, up….
I paused… Where could the beerstop be? I wasn’t worried about the beer, I just wanted some water… Could they go all the way to HTT and back? or perhaps back to 700 year stadium? Looked and my watch, and we were 5k in, nearly an hour… I was thirsty, and I’ve been up that trail before. I know where it goes. I decided I would try to find the hares, rather than risk climbing the hill without drinks. I went along the trail a bit to see if they were heading to HTT, but no sign of paper, so I turned back to 700 year stadium. Someone else should write up the rest of the run – it was a ball breaker, and my balls were broken. I wasn’t alone… – as ball breakers go, this one certainly broke some balls.
Brown Finger was defeated – just minutes from the summit, he turned back (with Taste My Buns), and came back along the road. Search Parties were sent out for runners on both the long and the short run. One by one hashers descended from the mountain. Chuckie came in looking exhausted – deciding not to drink through exhaustion. Finally Crap Thai was found… and after he was found his torch could be used to find Cuckold. It is early into the season, but congrats Poo – you managed to break a lot of balls – and do so without killing anyone!