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I drove up to Chiang Dao for the weekend’s festivities beginning with Friday night. Good times to catch up with old friends, and make some new ones… The run itself was early – we set off in the back of pickups and songthaews at 2:30, with the sun beating down on us, as we were dropped in the middle of nowhere. This would be all new.

I don’t know how many hares it took to set this run, but Boom Boom Baby and Citrus Smeller were on fire for the first few checks – it wasn’t until later we discovered they had helped set that part of the run! I on the other hand was getting everything wrong. An interesting twist to the run was that (allegedly) there were secret eggs hidden close to some of the circle checks, which meant each time we got to a check, people started hunting right around the check, rather than checking properly. This confused the hell out of me, as I had forgotten the harebrief by then. Instead, I just couldn’t hear any “ON” calls because of the sound of rustling leaves…

I was doing a good job of getting everything wrong, and slowly overheating. Somehow I was still near the front, and finally got one right as we crossed an unlikely little stream much to the enjoyment of a local chicken farmer. I got a couple right in a row, and now being at the front, I had a look for eggs – no luck for me! CW got to a check just behind me, and he agreed left was the likely option – I went left, while he went straight. After 120m or so, I paused and turned around, but there were no other calls. I edged out to around 150m, but still nothing. When I looked back now, I saw Shagless coming in my direction. Aha! Inside information! I went another hundred, but still no paper. I asked an old lady sat chuckling by the side of the road, and she told me the paper was further on. After 300m or so from the circle, I finally found paper! Either someone had pulled paper down, or the hares had been too busy yacking!

The next couple of checks were straight on, but each time, it was closer to 200m than 100m… Another circle, so I checked a full 200m, finding nothing. When Shagless (co-co-lead-hare) called it from 300m in a completely different direction, I was half a k off the pace. I decided to gamble as the trail I was on appeared to be bending in the right direction anyway… Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, this time I lost. With the sun burning down on me, it took me some time to loop around, and by the time I found a check, it was kicked out and the pack long gone. I jogged and walked, and finally caught up with 4 lovely young ladies, who were also struggling with the heat. I was tempted to stay with them, but pressed on. Finally I heard voices ahead – with trail going to the right, there were clearly people calling straight on. I did the sensible thing and went straight, hooking up back with the front of the pack, joining them as we headed down a steep bank to the beerstop. I sat in the shade at the back of the songthaew, and the heat hit me… BAM!

I was struggling to focus on anything. By the time I was half way through my beer they were packing up the beerstop, and heading back. I opted to get the breeze on me sitting in the back of the pick up, so missed out on the epic Chuck Wao river crossing just before the end. Saturday night seemed a lot quieter than Friday had been, so most people made it out for the hangover amble.

All in all, a very successful outstation – great job hares!

Tasty teamed with Foxy and engineered a set up which relied on hashers not being halfminds. The harebrief detailed precise distances for a myriad of choices between 2.something and 10k. Clearly a lot of work had gone into setting it up! After 5 minutes of harebrief, I’m not sure I knew what was going on, but for sure it sounded like we should be following white paper on the longer run.

We set off back around the lake, and didn’t see anything until a blob of powder and then a circle in powder. I checked over the road and found a nice looking trail between a couple of quarries. Emmaroid was following and when we found some powder we were confused. Emmaroid picked some up and sniffed it like a DEA agent. Unconvinced we didn’t call for quite a while – he ran on another 100m or so to find some paper, so the pack were someway back, and confused, from the start. It didn’t take long for them to catch up though as the 2nd check must have been nearly 200m before powder. I’d checked the right way first, but gave up after 150m or so. When it was eventually called nobody was quite sure where we were supposed to go, but we grouped up heading along the side of a canal.

A split gave walkers the option of following pink paper, while for the runners it was also a check. One of the problems of doing Wimp/Rambos is that it takes out a check opportunity, but here the hares had creatively combined a split with a circle check. Most understood what was supposed to happen, but there were a few stood around confused. Next was the family of cows that really didn’t appreciate being tied up on a narrow path with a bunch of crazy colourful hashers running at them. They were terrifiedly spooked when I passed, so I hope the rest made it through.

Another check crossed the canal and Sloppy found trail over a concrete weir that needed good balance. Not having it I went around and rejoined the pack at the next check, which for some reason took us out into the rice paddies. I felt bad enough trampling on the poor farmers field, but worse when he came out to find out why the hell a crazy bunch of foreigners had suddenly decided to destroy his crop. Not good. I think Sloppy was conscientious enough to go back and all the way around to avoid causing more damage. Sticking a circle check in the middle of a rice field and expecting hashers to scatter everywhere?!

I was happy to finally be out of the ricefield, and we got to a circle where the run imploded. Nobody imagined we should go back into the ricefield and destroy more of it! Everybody was relieved to be out of the field and checked each way along the road – even running on road would be better! With everywhere being checked thoroughly (except back into the rice field), Graven and I spotted something white across another field closer to the hills and headed off to investigate. It was white, it was paper, but it wasn’t hash paper. We were a long way from the circle, but still nobody had called it. We headed along the trail to the right and spotted Turkish beelining across the field with intent, saying nothing. It was trademark Turkey silent running, so we headed to intercept getting to a circle 40m behind him as he called “CIRCLE CHECK!!!”.

It took some time to understand from Turkey that he hadn’t been on paper, he’d just seen the check from a long way away. And by the time we figured out we had got to the check from the wrong place, the pack was already headed our way. It didn’t take long to solve, so I found myself at the front running back along the bottom of the hill on a nice pleasant trail, unaware of how much of the trail we had skipped.

A couple of checks later I stumbled on the hares at a warm beer stop. Warm beer and a cross check. I managed to find 2 false trails, including one at the top of a nasty steep cliff climb. Ack, I should have just had a warm beer instead! I cut across and rejoined Graven when we got to yet another choice. We could do the wimp trail which by now was surely already kicked out, or we could stick with white paper and head on in to the cold beer. It didn’t take too much thinking!

My head is still trying to get its way around the complexities of the run, or perhaps it is just trying to recover from a night out with Belly Dancer..!

HRA and female mystery co-hare and chauffeur got busy in Nam Phrae to eek out a devious route from well known terrain and trails.
Two songthaos, the Sat local mob, a couple of visitors and numbers were rocking. We were on powder with small x papers where powder wasn’t suitable, and trail was clearly marked all the way around. That was good. Also good was seeing so many in their colourful BB 2018 t shirts. Even Sups bought the last XXL!
I was sure we’d take an early left as HRA had mentioned hills but no, he teased us and tormented us, and we took the second road in towards the doi and 333 shooting gallery behind the Grand Canyon.
Alice knows almost every step of these hills and forests but HRA put his run together in a unexpected and clever way, especially early on, thus the lead was ever changing and the pack well grouped. Early calls from Emme Royde and Cartoon didn’t pass muster so Sex Pistol nailed them later.
Heading up towards the hillside shelter, we abruptly went right at what seemed to be a dirty check and H took us down the ravine of hell, the ravine that fcuked over shortcutters Skidmark, Doggie and possibly Turkish in about 2011 when I set here. It was not passable then but has a way down now and a makeshift handrail and ramp going up. That’s progress! It also has a few pitfalls. Alice found one and Anyone called out Take care! after my fall. Helpful! Does Nothing went down here too and observers said it sounded like a giant wind bag being deflated.
Once in the hills, we took the left fork up and peeled around to the left in a wide loop heading home. I was going ok and keeping up. Knockout and Cameltoe ran hard up the steep bits. Browny, Tasty Poo, Cartoon and Pussy were all there and thereabouts. Chucky was back in new trainers and wasn’t his usual supercharged roo self. Coming out of the forest trail went right and messed up Emma Royde and others. A clever circle and unexpected cut through a coffee shop property put me third and took out FRBs who’d streamed down the hill. Frozen appeared like a UFO from nowhere striding out of some property. Tasty nailed the next as I followed her but I got the last couple dead on despite hating myself for having to check what I thought were obvious wrong ways as Tasty got to choose the likely way at the penultimate and I was running into a new barb wire fence at the last. But no, the hare had found a way to go through one fence and around the last. I pushed hard the last 800m and passed Sups, Superbitch and Cockatoo on the run in. HRA and Analvice looked fairly incredulous as I steamed home to garlands of glory and the crowd’s adulation. Well, a bottle of water, a can of Leo and a down down for being the ugliest care assistant for changing old men’s shirts.
Top set, good crowd, OnOnOn at Kwan’s Kitchen. Well played HRA.

It seems more hares have been realising how great the running is in Maejo – lets get away from the dull canal road and explore the north! Graven picked the runsite up by the lake, but was then trapped even further by the terrain and trying to avoid the trails of recent runs. The hare brief gave it away – if you want to avoid the hill wait behind, otherwise, off up the hill… I led the way, on a few bits of powder… With Angry Inch just behind, I powered on through with a few questions of are you on? We’d missed it but Graven had put a circle check right at the start of the run!!! WTF?! Graven? Of all people? The echoes of Graven’s haring lectures reverberated around my mind… Checks are to bring people back together, not split them up!

I continued up and of course was back on powder as we’d been told we were going up the hill. Another couple of checks and Brown Finger was following me close at each check – could you not even pretend to check somewhere else? The main trail at the top offers a 50/50 split, left or right, but there was no way Graven was going right. I went left and carried on tagging the early checks. Brownie caught up and breezed by, only to wait for help at the next check. Apparently he had inside information about where not to check… It was straight again, but finally I got the next one wrong. I picked straight along the nice running trail and when I was wrong, I looped around to the left, but by the time I rejoined trail, most of the pack had already past by silently – even solving a FT!

The descent for a while was rocky, and my knee was dodgy, so I lost a bit of ground, only then to meet up with some walkers. Damnit – 3 checks or so that were already kicked out, and the pace was quick. Graven ran along with us giving a running commentary of how well the run was going. It felt crowded – I love running these trails though, and the walkers were excellent at keeping to the side and letting us run past. Some months back I’d figured out a deceiving little loop, and for some reason I was convinced Graven would do the same… and I was wrong… and I was thirsty… We crossed the road, and Graven was there to give the option of a Walker route back to the beer, so I took it!