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8th November – CSH3 – Graven Image

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Graven teamed up with Brownie for the start of a GI Maejo epic… 12 months ago, Graven and I set a couple of runs on the same day, out at Maejo, so having spent time with Gravey out there, I was curious what he had in mind. 12 months ago, we set one run that turned out to be pretty good, and one that was pretty crap – turned out Gravey modelled this run on the crappier one!

With 10 minutes to run time, I was starting to worry – at the runsite with the boys, and finally Belly Dancer showed up… No sign of the hares or other hashers… Finally with minutes to spare, 3 songthaews showed up along with a bunch of cars… Times like this, hashcashing is a challenge! I managed to get things organised and ready for the hare brief. It wasn’t brief… While the hare brief is designed to reduce confusion when out on trail – this one didn’t…. If you want to do the whole trail, do it, but if you want to do a bit less, then follow the guy in the blue shirt, and if you want to do a lot less follow the other guy… When should we follow them? I happened to be following Brownie at one point, what did that mean? It was all so confusing!

Finally we were released and with a host of elite hashers, it was hard going to get to the first check. 50 ish hashers headed off into the jungle Familiar trail, we quickly got onto the trail up to the ridge line. A couple of decent checks took us away for a bit, but it was clear pretty early on where we were headed – particularly given the warnings in the harebrief. It was a run I’d done before in reverse. We got to a wimp rambo split, and after a brief sojourn on the rambo route, I cut across to where I knew the trail was headed. With the hares out in force trying to keep us going in the right direction, I joined up with Bart Plug and Cum A Lot, and finally we caught up with Gorf, who was alone and completely befuddled by a sneaky check.

The trail literally fell away off the side of a mountain – straight down off the side of the hill, with hashers hanging on to trees. Fortunately we made it down alive, to the side of the lake for a short OnIn back to the beer. With so many runners the Beer Monster had to do a quick beer run, but we managed to get through the circle. Fun, but tough! There must be a good run there, but I’m not sure we found it 12 months back, or this time!

1st November – CSH3 – Scaly Gladiator

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Trouble on the hare line, Chucky? Panicking, Mr Mainwaring? Worried the virgin hares were not going to turn up? That’s all right, old chap. You just bugger off to Chiang Rai and leave good old overworked Doctor Byte to sort it out. Oh, and you too, GM, Mr Poo, sir, and the rest of you absent Committee arseholes. Not to worry, eh? Dr Byte will do your jobs too.

Well you needn’t have concerned yourselves – not that I expect you did – the irrepressible Dr B had it all in hand (ooh, erh). Having disappeared up their own arseholes for a month or so, the Scandinavian Virgins – Scaly Gladiator and his dad (time for a Hash name?) – finally came good (ooh, erh), and called Dr B to arrange a scouting day, for he had also agreed to act as their “Hash Consultant”. How many flaming jobs do you want, DB?

Well, the story goes that the first thing the Virgins wanted was a beer. So, four large Leo’s later, off they went, Hash Consultant in tow. And presumably, a great many more bottles later and the run was finally set, emerging like a ghost ship from the thick bank of alcohol fog that had formed in the collective half-mind. In fact they must have been so pissed that at some point they forgot just how far they had wandered away from the A site, and when they finally returned to it the run was set at not much shorter than 10k. Jeeeeeesus! How many beers did that take?

Anyhow, the Virgins had the Hash Consultant do the hare brief – burble, burble, hic, hic, something about round checks and sticks painted white. Nothing about how long the run was going to be. Visitors from Guam and Austin Texas looked anxious, but I did my bit to reassure them by telling them that the experienced Dr Byte wouldn’t let the Virgins fuck things up too badly . . .

So we were off. Well, I say that, but then I must say we were almost back at the A again before the run had really begun. In fact we had only run about half a k around the lake when we almost tripped over the songthaew. Surely not. Not this short. We could have gone back but we soldiered on and soon found more trail. And then the run really got going. And it was indeed a runners run, with very elaborate, devious checks, which the Hash Consultant had no doubt been significantly involved in setting. In fact they were so cunning, I found myself out in front then right at the back so many times I lost count. Does Nothing said I passed him five times during the run, but it felt more like ten to me. The trails were pretty good for the area around Mae Joe golf course, and bye and large we came in pretty close together – which was pretty good given the distance – although Miss Piggy was seen running in from a different direction with a knowing look on her face.

And then to the circle, run by DB as acting GM, of course. Time to splash the Virgin hares. But wait, the Virgins insisted on splashing the Hash Consultant instead. “It was all his fault.” And of course we all agreed it must have been his fault. After all he was in charge of everything – GM, Hash Cash, Hare Raiser, Beer Monster, Haberdasher, On Sec, Hash Consultant . . . A damned good circle: DB in excellent comedic form; songs and games from Guam and Austin; wings for me (yeah!) and Tasty Buns for being “the fastest,” which did not go down at all well with the Gravy Monster.

All in all it was a great day’s hashing – a long, well-marked, well-checked run followed by a short witty circle. An excellent Virgin attempt by Scaly Gladiator and his very amiable father, supported by that self-styled Hash Consultant, who will no doubt stand for election as Hash God as soon as the opportunity arises.
I

(Brown Finger)

25th October – CSH3 – Superman

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The Super family combined to create a new hash adventure. A familiar starting point by the waterfall cafe behind Wat Doi Kham. Once most of us had found the hash signs to get there, I figured we’d have a bit of climbing to do – it’s a great trail, but most of the runs I’ve been on there seem to follow the same route. Would the veteran hasher find something new for us? In short no… but the whole story became more interesting!

After the hare brief we were set off back down the road, around the corner and along the side of the water. There was a brief period of confusion looking for paper by a weir. Brownie pointed across the weir and up a hill, encouraging me to look for paper where there was none. Damnit, finally they called on on – why was nobody else looking for paper while I was on a wild goose chase??? What the hell, I had the higher ground, we had to be going up sooner or later, so I carried on up the ridge, with the occasional call from down the gully to my left. I finally heard Chuckie call “Check Back”, and figured they were heading off to the left – I just had to find a way to get over there… There wasn’t one, but the nice trail I was on quickly joined the main trail, and unsurprisingly there was paper marking the way. Too short to go back, so I figured I’d do the trail in reverse.

I ran up to the waterfall, found the scramble across along the edge of the hill, and started back down. Surely I would meet the pack sooner or later? Half an hour in, and I’m running backwards on trail – where were the FRBs? Finally I saw Shagless leading the way! Maybe he’d done Sups’ clever short cut? A long way further and finally there was Junglicious running towards me, followed by the pack of FRBs. We exchanged pleasantries, and I carried on backwards. Next was Turkish, desperate to know how far behind he was… Then there was a gap to Mr. Poo and the ladies. By now I was already down on the flat lands at the bottom of the hill… – How could I only be halfway through this???

Next up I saw Sups, a brief discussion and I kept going, around the corner and well, there was the out trail… WTF had happened??? I’d run pretty much the whole trail (backwards) while the rest of the pack were just mingling around? Graven appeared in front of me – turns out he’d done a similar trick to me, but not found trail. We jogged back towards the A, and found Cougar and Humperdick stood by a cross check that hadn’t been there earlier. It dawned on me – Sups had set a false trail off to the right, and then gone back and changed it up to a cross check after. Turns out it had screwed everyone up – in some ways that is excellent haring? Most seemed to disagree and quite a few negative comments were passed. I just enjoy running trail, which I did, so I was happy.

CH4 – 23rd October – HRA

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I went out for 10k last night, so set off to the hash feeling a little sore, and hoping for a short HRA effort… Even before the hare brief it was clear it wasn’t going to be short as the hare moved from group to group saying he had no idea how far it was, just that it was long… Uhoh…

After a hare brief that makes Square Rooter seem like he has all his conversations on twitter, we were finally released. The hare brief, while detailed, only gave a small clue to the direction of the run. Fortunately we figured it out and followed Brownie as he scampered through a field. A quick water crossing and then we had a few small bridges to navigate until we got to a very overgrown disco shelter. Wow has nature taken over – we used to have circles there and park there, not any more..!

We knew where we were though, and we were on familiar trails that haven’t been hashed for several years. Rather than turning towards the mountains, every opportunity took us towards the village, and there were quite a few stretches on the road. At least it was flat. We kept turning away and further away – how far was this hash??! There was good rotation and the checks were great for keeping us together. I was trying to conserve energies, but managed to keep up with the true FRBs.

We ducked down towards Bone Hur’s area – again not been hashed for a while, but perfectly good. Finally we started turning towards the hills, and with the trail being so close to previous trails, I have to say the hare did an excellent job of keeping the trails apart. The right checks in the right places – it was well thought out. We came back very close to the out trail, and even though we’d been checking towards the back trail several times, we could never have screwed it up. Great job!

Finally we got back – I had 8.7km on my GPS – man I’m tired!

11th October – CSH3 – Sloppy Rod

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Sloppy teamed up with Chuckie to give us a mini-ballbreaker, starting from Huay Tung Thao. The hare brief was anything but brief, but in due time we were set loose. I jogged off with Humps to the first circle. 2 options, right up the hill, or straight along the bottom. I took the route over the hill knowing the two trails rejoined further on. 100m.. nothing, damnit! With a long run ahead, I was loathe to go back, but no one was calling… I kept on a bit further, but still nothing. Finally I heard Cougar calling from down to my right – there must be another trail there. By now I was already over the hill, so made my way down towards the call, and found trail with Cougar running towards me.

A V-check. Towards the army base, or not? I didn’t think we’d be going into the army base, so chose left – and hit the check back. OK, so we were going into the army base and I caught up with the pack at the road. Turning right was unlikely, so I headed for the dam, following Cougar who was running very well. It was a long way, but as we switched from paper to powder, perhaps we missed some trail, but we eventually got trail and jogged passed some soldiers.

The other side of the lake we started off on road that slowly changed to mud trail. Great running trails! We were headed towards Maerim… Shortly we got onto a trail that Sloppy used on 5th December 2011 for the male hash. The checks were pretty much straight on, so Piggy & Brownie led the way as the pack started to stretch out. A V-check caught them out and some how I found myself at the front with HRA. The trail took a sharp turn to the right, and there was the water stop. Strange – why no check? and there was a circle on the tree? So I headed on straight another 100m or so. Nothing, no sounds, no calls, no trail… (Had I gone another 20m around the corner I would have found trail again, but I turned back and found Mr. Poo and Cumlord sitting drinking water at the drink stop.

Damnit… I sped up and at the next check managed to reel in the front group. Taste My Buns was leading the way up heart break mountain a steep climb that was a killer after 5-6km already. No choice but to battle through it, and the front group of 5 were close together. We reached the top, and then found it wasn’t quite the top, and climbed a bit higher. As we turned to the left we had the view of HTT in the distance, and could just about make out the cars and the A-bucket. We started the descent and somehow HRA got away. For a while I was running with Piggy and Brownie slowly reeling in Tasty Buns, with HRA just ahead, and then all of a sudden HRA was gone. Did he switch on the turbo boost? He blasted through all the checks with us trying to figure out where his calls were coming from.

We were getting closer and the trails felt more familiar, although by that point, one waterfall looks like any other. A fly flew straight down my throat and I paused for a moment to gag. The front group disappeared, and as I jogged on past the ranger station, Graven suddenly appeared behind me. I’d not seen him all run, but in true Gravy style he was making his moves towards the end. But there wasn’t enough trail left for him, and we jogged in together.

A GREAT run… It has been a long time since I’ve done a longer hash run – I’ve set a few, but not had the chance to run them, so it was a lot of fun. Cheers hares! Here’s to more miniBBs

4th October – CSH3 – Belly Dancer

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Belly teamed with his favourite co-hare for a run near Ob Kham. Not the run site they’ve used before, but just around the corner… After hearing about the brutality of Monday, I guessed it would be a tamer affair, so checked in earlier in the week and was told it was ‘kid-friendly’, and encouraged to let Matty (Terror Byte) & Danny (8-Bit) out on the run for almost the first time.

We set off with my boys setting the early pace, until Brownie and I swept past into some horticultural centre. A couple of checks had the pack stuck together. Then there was a good check that had me way off course to the right, while the trail went up the hill to the left. I followed Stumbling Dyke up the hill as Terror Byte was already fading behind. Another circle check, and everyone milling around. Nobody wanting to check down a steep hill, and most going up. I followed Taste My Buns down, and sure enough we were on.

Definition – “Kid Friendly” – a run that is safe and fun for kids of all ages – in the hope they get motivated to continue hashing in the future!

The trail descended into a treacherous gully, I was sliding down clinging from tree to tree. I don’t think anyone survived without falling. It wasn’t long before I was bleeding from my middle finger. It wasn’t any definition of friendly that I know. Tasty Buns reassured me that it would be easier for the kids – they are closer to the ground right? Damnit… Nowhere I can go anyway – we’re in a single person gully, trying to stop falling more quickly down.

At the bottom Gorf and I hit the road, I went right, he went left. I could hear the screams and wails on the descent, hoping it wasn’t my boys. I was expecting the trail to go to the right, but sadly it went left. It was going to be up a steep mountain – I knew it had to go over the top to get into the valley the other side. We were 30 minutes in, heading up hill away from the A bucket. I turned back to find the kids. Not far back 8-Bit was walking along with Knockout. He was battered, bruised and bleeding, but in high spirits – perhaps because of Knock Out for company? Further back on the trail, there was Matty who’d picked up Snail Trail and Baaabe. There I was worried, and the boys were busy picking up older women?! Excellent Hashing Behaviour!

Probably more of a male hash than a Saturday hash – I can guess the other half of the trail, and in other circumstances it would have been a good one. OnOn.

2nd October – CH4 – Junglicious

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Junglicious stepped up at short notice to set the run, and she lured Jungle Chim up from Lamphun to help her – it was great to see him back, and hopefully he’ll join us for a few runs every now and then! At HTT, my expectation scale was all over the place – with no sign at the bridge, I was panicking that there wasn’t a run set yet – but when I found signs inside the gate, I was interested to see what they had in store.

The A-bucket, at the side of the lake immediately limited our out trail, and when we set off we were along the lake and over the dam wall. A couple of ‘non-checks’ slowed us down until we got to the first circle the other side of the lake. Knowing the trails well, I set off to the left, and Chuckie followed mumbling about how he would check another way sooner or later…. Not long after we were on trail – we found out later we weren’t supposed to be on that trail. Not long after and there was a circle check, and I followed the trail along the bottom of the mountain (yes I had inside information from Frozen Dick). I was on, and called “OnOn” about the same time CW did… Huh? Had we screwed up? CW was on, but I was definitely ON – it was the right distance, and there was no other way to get here…. I am off wondering if the pack was following me or CW…

Along the base of the mountain to the junction that I just love putting circle checks at. So many options, and NO CHECK! Huh? The trail went straight on, but a quick glance to the left had a bit of paper in the distance… – Did I have time to get there, and around the corner before the pack caught me? With Brown Finger and Pigshit on the hunt, I had no chance… Damn it! They sorted the false trail out without running it out, and caught me up before I got up to the road. We are in to serious hash running season now boys.

Then the checks were all turning left… wtf? We were heading straight back to the A! It can’t be this way, so I started looking off to the right, with no luck. It was straight back to the A. Chuckie called OnIn, and we regrouped to run in… 3km, 20 minutes… Something had gone badly wrong!!!

Browny, Piggy and Tasty were straight off out to do another lap. Chucky was feigning a hangover. I was consulting the hares and figuring out what we’d done wrong. It became clear we could drive around the lake, and still take on the rest of the run. Poo was up for it, and reluctantly Humperdick also came along. Then we had fun! 3 hounds working together. The trail went another 3k along the side of the lake, and back along the aqueduct (fuck it, I spell it aquaduct) system. The last check on our extra bit, there were 2 choices, and me and Poo were wrong – but as both trails rejoined we didn’t go back… On a technicality Humps was the only guy to do the whole trail, so he absolutely deserved the wings.

With hindsight the trail was a great set, but with hashers you have to expect them to fuck up!

27th Sept – CSH4 – Knock Out

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I got a phone call before getting to the runsite to say they’d run out of signs, so if I got there first I might want to put some signs up… – if only I knew where we were going! Way down the river, so far that Turkish & Chuckie got lost and gave up, while Rin, Stuart, Belly and Anything got lost and were late. Those of us that did make it to the start were ready for Skiddy’s farewell hash. Skiddy will be seriously missed from the Chiang Mai hash community – a complete hasher who does more than his share of setting, organising and making sure the hash works throughout the year. Lets hope todays run will be a fitting tribute to him!

A flat run, in the orchards – surely there would be some water crossings? Brownie and I set off at the start with him promising me that I could have first pick at the first check. It wasn’t really a surprise that the check was skiddy sticks, so gee thanks – I got them… It wasn’t a surprise, but ALL the checks were skiddy sticks… The checks worked really well, and we were zig zagging, criss crossing, all over the place trying to figure out the route. With trails all over the place, it was tempting to start looking for true trail before the sticks were found, but who knew when the false trail would be reached?

The trail was pretty similar to one we’d done before by KO, so some parts were a bit predictable, but the checks were so hard! A normal circle check gives us a radius of 100m in a circle – i.e. an area of 31415.93 square metres to search for paper – bloody hell that is a lot! However, if the trail can be 100m back along the trail and 100m of either side, we add a 20000 square metre area – i.e. Skiddy checks like this changed the search area from 31416 square metres to 51416 square metres – at times we might have had more luck finding MH370.

Running along we were often wondering if we’d missed a check, or missed some paper – a good mental exercise. The checks were keeping us well together, nobody getting any advantages. Finally we got to a check that really foxed us. With hindsight, we were searching too far back from the sticks. I went the most obvious way, and had gone 100m and back, but nobody had found paper. Humps asked if I’d really checked it, so I went back and went further. No calls, so I kept going, and finally got out on a road. Paper Everywhere!!! It was going left, right, straight, all over the place! BUT, it was clear that I hadn’t found the trail the way the hares intended…. Still no calls from the pack… I went back and forth along the road trying to figure out what we were supposed to be doing, or where the paper was supposed to have come from… Still no calls.. I could see Piggy on the other side of a field, so called over to ask for help with the mystery. He headed in my direction bringing much of the pack, as we all short cut around 3km off the full run.

Not far around the corner it was the OnIn… Excellent checks that did a great job of keeping the pack running around like confused lemmings. Confused lemmings that like jogging along hunched down to avoid the tree branches.

25th September – CH4 – Adorable Blue Balls

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“Adorable”? Abominable! The guy’s from Bangkok, never seen a hill before, and wants to use it all in one go?! 😮 We have a new hasher that’s read the Square Rooter book of haring – he probably has a signed copy! And I guess he doesn’t like his new hashing community? >240m elevation gain – the first haring is breaking records!!!

The runsite was new – we’d run there before, but not from that exact spot – I actually thought it would be easier, but it did take me some time to get my head around the exact position I was in… We set off in the direction of the Fire Prevention Centre, and Junglicious and I headed the group with Brownie itching to get running behind us. He’s at a different pace and was clearly frustrated on the narrow trail climbing the hill “can’t we run on this?”. I thought better of it, but he nipped past, only to fall on his face moments later. At last a check. Brownie set off up the hill. Chuckie and I discussed how there was nothing up there – down to the left was more likely… Some ‘spore’ also suggested to the left, so we gave up the high ground, and promptly found plastic rope scouting markings. Lets let BF go a bit higher before we let him know….

ON ON, and back to a familiar hill / ridgeline. Like a 2nd home to Chuckie, he started attacking it. My mood improved when Junglicious past, but I could only follow her for a bit as the pack stretched out up, up, up. Given the way we started, it had to be arcing to the left, so perhaps I could take off some of the hill, so I broke off to the left. I didn’t realise Taste My Buns was behind me, as she chased me into the bushes – retracting quickly when she realised I was attempting a short cut. Attempting, and failing… I’d not been in quite that area before, and for good reason – there was no way through. I had the choice of hacking a way down and out, or up and back to the trail. Reluctantly I chose up, and climbed to where Mr. Poo and Knock Out were.

I looked for every opportunity to cut off to the left, but there wasn’t. When I did come to a check, it was straight on, and paper visible from the check. Finally the “top” was where we intersected a trail and cut back down to the left. The trail would have been alright without the rain, but I was forced to walk for fear of twisting something, and I was quickly dropped from the back. We were heading towards the Ag Center, and I felt the lure of the nice flat trails at the bottom of the mountain. I met Humps, KO and Poo when the trail abruptly turned left, but I opted to head down and after walking up and down hill for so long, finally go for a run at the Ag Centre.

Memorable certainly! Adorable, perhaps not! 😉 I hate the hills!

13th September – CSH3 – Turkish Delight

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Numbers were seriously depleted again, perhaps from the threat of rain, or perhaps because Turkey was the hare? Anyway, the group assembled for Turkey’s hare brief, before setting off on trail.

First check could have gone 4 different ways, but I was lucky picking the right way towards the inevitable hills. Another check, and I gambled through a gate into the orchard that I’d got stuck in a few weeks back on Frozen’s run. There was paper there, but it clearly wasn’t from this run. Although I spotted some white in the distance which was surely where the OnIn would be. Chuckie called from off to the left, and I hacked my way through, crawling under a barbed wire fence to get back on trail.

I was a long way behind, but finally caught up at another circle check. No sign of CW, so I assumed he’d broken clear, until Poo told me he’d short cut on old paper. There was a lot of old paper, from Itchy’s run, Frozen’s run and Taste My Buns’ run, so its an easy mistake to make. Taste My Buns led the way across rolling hills passing Frozen on a strategic short cut, and back out into the orchard. So soon? I checked into the jungle as surely we weren’t heading back yet?

The race was on as we came through the orchard with TMB checking one side of the lake, and me going the other side. I was right!@ Excellent, with Knockout and Poo following… huh? There was the racist TMB up ahead having gone the ‘wrong’ side of the lake! Some local knowledge had her gleefully calling OnIn, only to find CW already tucking into the beers when we got back. 30 mins, a very short loop, but still one that a lot of people ‘short cut’!