It was time for the Sloppy / Gash birthday run – sure to be an epic as it had been planned for a long time. I wonder about the division of tasks? The Geisha to set the trail while The Rod organised T-shirts and the On-On? Who knows but with the run out in Maerim, I suspected Sloppy had a deal to do with the trail and I was looking forward to the challenge as I set off from home. Around 3,000 km later I got to the lakeside run site. Memories came flooding back of another Sloppy run from the same site.
With no sign of Sloppy, Sups gave a non committal hare brief and set us off around the lake. As usual Belly Dancer took off with Brown Finger, with the latter to be thwarted for the first time at the first V. I caught BD shortly before the next circle – as the hares had placed it down off the trail, I fruitlessly checked across the stream into the farm before BD belated called On-On – some would call it silent running! We followed Brown Finger for a while along the bank of a hill through the burnt ashes, and I feared we wouldn’t see him again. Eventually he was thwarted at a circle, and I lucked out – calling “ON ON” loudly at every opportunity. Another V check, correctly and loudly called by yours truly to assist Chuckie who was following behind. Luckily I got it right, and shortly found Sloppy looking exhausted at the Wimp Rambo split. I was tempted to take the Wimp, but Slops sold me a lie about how far there was to go and I jogged on.
The next circle was a killer! Getting there first I ended up zig zagging my way all the way around a resort with few calls coming from behind. It turns out Brown Finger jogged up with Horny Ass and pointed a possible trail out to him, but the blind bastard didn’t check it thoroughly enough and it took 10 minutes before BF went back and found the trail. Meanwhile I was the wrong side of a rice field, lake and road. I could hear some calls, but struggled to find a way back to the trail. When I did rejoin, there was a group running together and things were working again. As well as being falsely accused of silent running, I was also falsely accused of hash crash – nobody saw my parkour style roll as I eagerly plunged to the real trail with the sole intention of assisting with the checks!
It was then we got to the 2nd of the brilliant checks. While the first had done a great job of rejoining all those who’d take the Rambo trail, this one managed to split the pack. Brownie and Chuckie took off and from then didn’t put a foot wrong – most of the subsequent checks had been kicked out by wimps like Bone Hur. Graven took off after them, while I jogged along with Horny, Turkish and Crazy Crack. It was a tough up and down finish to a tough run – my GPS battery gave out before the finish – around the same time Turkish’s motivation died and we didn’t see him again.
I was beat by the time I finished, so I’ll need a rest / massage before Monday! It was a good run (see I said it Slops!) well marked, with some interesting checks – 2 most notably. For me, not quite being an FRB, the last parts of the run were a shame – but that is largely due to Brownie and Chuckie getting away after someone kicked the circle out wrong – I blame Turkish! It does make you wonder about Wimp / Rambos… – but I think this one worked.
The circle was, well as circle. Square Rooter was brutalised and then refused the opportunity of a revenge splash – harsh! Well, we don’t have to suffer Horny’s wrath too much longer! The On-On was good – and today was a family hash with a bunch of kids enjoying running around together. Good times!