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SheepShagger and his glamorous assistant Happy Ending set a twisty trail in the flatlands close to Baan Tiwai.

It’s an area with potential and definitely underhashed. All good so far.

The way to hell is paved with good intentions they say, and Sheepy wanted to use up old Lanna pink squares. These worked well enough scattered on the deck like Mother intended, but stapled low to the paths on low contrast green in low light surrounded by small
pink flowers… you can guess the rest.

Trail twisted and spun, went back in itself and kept the pack guessing. That was fine. Trouble is the frb’s were guessing for paper some of the way too.

Rice paddies were cut and hard enough to run through. A few ditch crossings were encountered and poor Anywan lost her trainer in a deep bog as she rooted for vegetables while on trail. Good Samaritan Leaky Faucet pulled her off.. I mean out.. and offered her his water bottle to wash the filth off her shoe.

It was hard to get a handle on where we were going and the lead was constantly changing. Hounds were frustrated by the pointless ABB ‘trick’ of stapling paper 5m down a side turn when the trail goes straight on. Circles were also on the sides of trees or set back from the path and quite a few were simply missed as the frb’s sometimes struggled to see the small light pink squares anyway.

After 6 weeks shuffling with a bad Achilles, it was great to be jogging along at last. I ran a bit with Cumlord and passed and repassed Itchybitchy and Knockout.

The sun was out, the pack were working together and best of all we lost Suckit and Pigshit 3/4 of the way through the run.

Browny and Cartoon were going great guns and Horny Lazarus.. I mean Monkey, was showing a leg to impress his young virgins no doubt.

After 5.3km I heard On In shouted at a turn ahead and happily jogged in with the leggy virgin guest of Game,Set n Snatch.

Felt happy to have got home more or less unscathed and enjoyed a sluice and the circle.

SheepShagger was caught out as RA for the day but people took turns and it was fun enough but overlong. Graven thought he was back as GM on Monday so many splashes did he give. Suckit and Piggy eventually returned from 180 degrees the wrong way, after Itchy, the one girl search party, borrowed my scooter to search for the miscreants.

All in all I enjoyed the trail and exercise and hope we run around the area again. Just avoid light pink and make the paper bigger and more visible would be perfect.

When SR is the hare you kind of know what to expect, and your fears are generally confirmed depending on the size of his pre-harebrief grin. There was a twinkle in his eye today, and sure enough it was cute. Ag center, by the wall, so no surprise when we set off along the usual path towards the hills, and the inevitable circle check by the other end of the wall. I ducked the other side of the wall and started looking for paper towards the hills, while Poo, KO & Graven headed left. I was joined by Cumlord, Emmaroyde and a bunch of others. No powder to be seen. I discussed how once I’d set trail straight across the orchard, because nobody checks there – why didn’t I think of checking there? Finally ABB found it right where I was suggesting. Already the first check had us scattered.

I nailed the next check before running straight into an FT. Damn you! We were going along the lower trails, but then looped back around to the left. I was getting a few right, but was helped further when I found Graven hiding on trail (he was going backwards), and then Poo (he was going backwards too) and then KO (also going backwards). A larger pack back together we hit the Wimp Rambo split and headed up hill. Up Up Up! I hit another False Trail – equally predictable. We weren’t going too far up the hill – instead we cut back down to the low trails.

A glance at my GPS – Rooter had said 7km, and he normally doesn’t lie about stuff like that. I was fearful as the trail headed up again. With so many false summits, we were climbing, and climbing and climbing. A dastardly V check was about the last real arrow that Rooter could shoot as from then on the trail just continued up and up. I slowly lost the front of the pack but fought my desire to turn back. Finally the trail broke right and we had the speedy descent back past the old W/R split that was now an OnIn. That really was what hashing is about. A tricksy hare, and a long tough trail!

A peaceful day workwise led me down towards Lamphun. We’d been given GPS co-ords, so I had company from google as I drove down – she got me there even though there were no signs, and it turned out to be a lot quicker to get to than I expected! So I was early, and tried to take a nap in the car for a bit till the hares showed up.

I had no idea where I was, which meant there would be no home field advantage. After a late, long hare brief, we set off. My brain has been switched off all day, and it didn’t reboot as we got running – I quickly lost all sense of direction. Fortunately there was a decent pack to do most of the checks, and I just trundled around off the back of the front group. A couple of times I set off to help check, but each time I was wrong.

The hares had done a good job of twisting the trail around and CW repeatedly overtook me, each time tallying up the checks he got wrong – all of them was the end result – except for near the end when Graven gave him some inside information to let him “win”! Graven is recovering from a hernia, so only walked around slowly – nonetheless a FT check after halfway had the pack confused until Graven solved it.

Good set – particularly if you were a midget that didn’t need to worry about bending under the orchard trees, but also had long jump skills to leap over the ditches!

Poo teamed up with KO from out at Baan Pong Resort – a great area for running, and a bunch of trails that I’ve been exploring recently – what would they give us? I picked up some clues from the hare brief, and listening in on what the hare was telling the visitors. With visitors we swelled to around 40 runners – the whole Happy Hash on a Thursday seems to be working out.

We were set free, and CW and I walked back out of the resort to the first circle. I headed to the trail near the ricefields behind the hill (Poo had mentioned a hill, and a 4km wimp trail, so I kinda thought I had him pegged. Sure enough there was paper and calling ONON, I broke into a jog. At the next check, I nearly turned left as I thought I’d seen something white down to the left, but glancing along the main trail there was definitely something white along there. Sure enough I was on, and jogging along comfortably. At this pace I would stay clear. WTF? A pitter patter from behind and as a visitor caught me up, I had to speed up to get to the next check first – and he looked in great shape!

I went straight, but slower, and again got it right, buying a bit of time. The pace was quick – certainly quicker than my comfort zone. Another check, and I was fairly confident with this one, right again as I found the white paper heading around the tiny square lake. Straight into another check, where the obvious trail was straight to the left, but my gut said take the right trail, and sure enough – I was on fire! Unstoppable! Surely I must be way ahead by now? But no, right behind me the pack was on my ass. Another check, and I made a mistake I should know where the cut through is by now… It isn’t the first time I’ve made that mistake, and damnit!

Of course we were headed straight to the cut through, and came down to the lake with quite a pack of runners, all of which looked like they were fresh, while I really didn’t feel fresh! At the lake – surely he was going around the lake? It wouldn’t be that exciting, but… Surely? There must be a W/R split here taking the wimps back to the resort and sending the rambos around the lake. My overheated head couldn’t see any alternative to the puzzle. I headed left, and when it was called to the right, I was sure it was just dropping to the lake side and then back to the left, so I jogged around the corner to see where they would surely rejoin me. I could hear a bunch of people shouting and calling randomly from just below me down by the lake – maybe not completely standard hash calls, but we did have a lot of visitors, and they were getting closer. I paused for a bit as they would appear any minute, and after a short rest I could rejoin the pack…. Eventually a group of cattle herders appeared shouting at their cows, and I realised I was extremely fucked… The hares had outwitted me…

As soon as I realised that, my stupidity dawned on me. Poo wouldn’t just run around the lake.. With Poo you should always expect devious figure of 8 tricks. I was way way back! Still, its a nice area to run in, so I followed trail for a while, gradually overtaking people, and hearing comments questioning why I was so far back… Ugh!

Then it was a long steady jog to the dam and across the dam. Lucky it wasn’t too hot, and I just plodded on thinking that would have been a good spot for a beerstop. Sure enough around the corner there was a beerstop, but for some reason I still thought I had a chance to get back into the pack. Ha! The trail started heading up hill again – I’ve been up there before, so opted to cut down to the lower trail and followed the side of the creek, while I could hear CW heading the other direction from the otherside of the creek. I know there is a place to cross that creek, but couldn’t remember how much further it was. Finally I hacked my way over, and man it was much more overgrown than I’ve ever known it – an ugly hack that I barely made it through to find Crap Thai being kind with his laughter!

I was spent, I just wanted to get back and have a beer by this point. Really excellent set. The true trail was much better than what I ended up doing.

It’s been a while since I’ve joined the hash, but out in Doi Saket and during Midterm exam week, I figured I’d give it a go…

The A site was by the canal headed towards Wangtarn resort. Trail set off over the canal and turned right along the canal bank. Rooter and Tiptoe had slipped off to a headstart, but they were still confused by the first check. It turned out the trail went straight along the canal for a km or so – I guess the hares hoped we’d forget about that by the end?

Foxy found that first check, but called so quietly that only the hare took off after her. Overtaking the hare and Foxy, I got to another check, which was further along the canal (left here only leads to a gate as far as I know). Finally we turned left up the hill, with a couple of nice checks – made even nicer as I got them right.

Then we got to a bit of a fuck up – I found a check back after 70m or so from a circle. My signals to TMB must have been confusing as she laid paper after me, rather than finding the right way. The check back wasn’t off a V check, it was just a random checkback, which turned out to be a false trail off the circle. I think there was further confusion behind me, as Tasty and I took off and nailed another check as we could see paper off to the left.

Angry Inch caught up as I came back from a false trail at a V-check, and from there it was the 3 of us leading the way. That V-check was pivotal, as it meant we weren’t going to be turning left as I first suspected. Instead we would have to cross the canal at the first opportunity and head back along the otherside of the canal, presumably coming in via the nice estate near the A-bucket. From there it was just a case of connecting the dots.

Piggy and Rooter have set memorable runs here in the past couple of years and DoesNothing a killer from here to his Ag Centre Wall. You know what you’ll get here and it’s never better than you expect!
HRA set a standard test up, up and across then down with mostly 2 options at every check.
Having mislaid my phone holder I was delayed while borrowing Cumalot’s nice new pink one. Starting 8 mins behind was no biggie as I just wanted a work out without accidents and just about managed that.
Trail was well marked with the key feature being double circle checks and v’s in case the rain got one of them!
Yomping up with Rooter and sweating in places I didn’t think I had places, I tore each circle out a different way for the benefit of Pussy Galore and Purple Shart following as DFL in our wake. The paper on the deck was the giveaway but it confused the hell out of them.
Leaving Rooter shortly before the rocky stream crossing on the in trail, we called a few OnOns to each other before I jogged back down, feeling the knees and only slipping once in mud, not wet rock this time.
HRA and Chucky were looking at me as though I hated the run or had got lost, but I was nearly 10min adrift at the start and was just bushed.